While the World Is Still Asleep (The Century Trilogy Book 1) (35 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Roads made of nothing more than slippery clay that clogged his spokes and brought his wheels to a standstill. Prairies where his bicycle sank so deeply into sand that he had no choice but to dismount and push his bicycle for miles.

Parched landscapes where the only things that grew were thorn bushes. In one day, he had to patch his front tire three times because of the needle-sharp barbs.

Deep gorges where no daylight penetrated and the sound of his wheels on the dry riverbed echoed ominously off the bare rock walls.

Roads littered with human waste and animal bones, rutted stretches dotted with twisted sheets of iron, smashed bricks, and broken glass.

A few miles outside of one town, the street disappeared into nothing. Though the land was crisscrossed with thousands of miles of rails for trains, the road system hobbled along far behind Europe. Often, Adrian had no choice but to ride along the railway embankments and hope that he would be fast enough to dodge approaching trains.

He carried a dog whip, which he had to use zealously to keep stray dogs and packs of coyotes at bay.

Around Pittsburgh, the air was black from coal dust, and breathing made his lungs burn; the fine grit settled in his eyes and filled every pore. Just before Cleveland, he rode into a plague of locusts, the air turning dark with the chirping, prehistoric-looking insects that greedily ate the land around them bare. Adrian had pedaled on quickly, not only to escape the locusts, but also the devastation on the faces of the farmers, who could only stand and watch as a year’s work was destroyed in a matter of hours.

Once, he got caught in a wildfire, and he pedaled like never before in his life. He was able to escape the raging flames, but his skin was red and swollen from the heat for days afterward.

The journey from Boston to Chicago took him from May until the start of September. Luckily, he had kept his health and not suffered any serious accidents along the way.

He had met Americans who had outdone each other with their hospitality, had passed through towns where he had drawn a crowd in minutes, everyone wanting to know
everything
about his great journey. People had bought him beer, and they had served him hot chili beans and deliciously spiced steaks that had been grilled over an open fire.

He had also encountered Americans who had set their dogs on him. One farmer had aimed a shotgun at him and growled, “Git off my land.” Adrian was only too happy to do so. But that was the gravest threat he had faced.

America. What a huge, crazy country.

Now he had ridden almost twelve hundred miles, and Lake Michigan lay blue and glittering before him in the cold autumn light. On the shores of the lake, Chicago spread its wings, its many-storied buildings looming skyward. An icy wind nearly blew him off his bicycle, and his bicycle lamp swung wildly from left to right as he pedaled along Wells Street, which led him into the very heart of Chicago. He could not stop grinning.

He had done it! He had reached his goal.

He dismounted in front of the Hotel Victoria, which was owned by a German man who told Adrian where to go buy some decent clothes and food, and where the best whores in the city were to be found. Adrian thanked him for all his tips, but he waved off the last one with a laugh. He had other things in mind!

The tailor Adrian went to visit was German as well. As he was fitted for a pair of pants, they got to talking, and Adrian explained his goal of visiting Western Wheel Works and importing bicycles to Germany.

“Oh, I know the owner of WWW well. Adolph Schoeninger. We’re both in the German-American Society. He’s got a reputation as a hard-nosed businessman, and it’s true that he runs his factory with a strict hand, but he’s a fair man. A handshake means as much as the written word. That’s people from Württemberg for you.”

“He’s from Württemberg?” Adrian stared at the tailor in surprise.

“You didn’t know that? You’ve come all this way just to buy bicycles from a countryman.”

Despite his hunger, Adrian denied himself the luxury of a long lunch. He wolfed down a frankfurter from a stand, then climbed aboard one of the city’s many trams, eager to pay a visit to Adolph Schoeninger as soon as he could.

He gazed out at the city from his seat as it passed by. There were bicycles everywhere! Young men, older men, elegant women, maids in plain uniforms, children, top-hatted gentlemen, and gentlemen with nothing covering their heads at all—all riding along as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Chicago was a boomtown in every sense, the tailor had told him. Now Adrian knew what he had meant by that. The energy the city and its inhabitants radiated was so powerful that Adrian caught it like a contagious disease. When the huge sign reading “Western Wheel Works & Crescent Bikes” came into view, he leaped out of his seat.

“How many bicycles did you have in mind?” Adolph Schoeninger waved over a foreman and shouted something in his ear so quickly in English that Adrian didn’t understand a word. The man immediately ran over to a gigantic machine and began frantically turning various knobs. An octopus-like arm that had been lowering to a table and rising again stopped in midair.

“I’m not sure,” Adrian yelled back as he looked wide-eyed around the factory. Many of the machines were completely new to him and looked to have been specially built for manufacturing bicycles. The noise from the countless sheet-metal presses and stampers was deafening. All around them, at long rows of tables and using smaller machines, men were hard at work bolting, welding, assembling. Adrian estimated there were several hundred of them.

Schoeninger said, “I’ve currently got about six hundred workers here, in two shifts. But I’m always searching for new hands. Last year we produced sixty thousand bicycles. This year, I want to increase that by another ten thousand. To do that, I need good men.”

Adrian was speechless.

“Americans are mad about bicycles. Everyone wants one. Someday, the roads of America will be so full of wheels that no one will be able to get through,” said Schoeninger with a grin. “And we export on a large scale, too,” he went on. “To France, Denmark, most recently to Sweden. And to Germany, of course. But don’t worry, I don’t have an importer in Berlin yet,” he added, when he saw the panic on Adrian’s face. “You should know that we look for only
one
wholesaler for each sales region. That wholesaler then sells our bikes to individual customers and to subdealers.”

Adrian relaxed. These were things he understood! In Schoeninger’s office, they got down to the details: prices, delivery times, terms of payment. The financing was in place; Adrian had organized a loan with EWB’s bank before he left. The bank’s senior director had been far from convinced by Adrian’s “bicycles for all” concept, but his son, who was also the junior director, had shown a great deal of enthusiasm for the idea.

With financing assured and given the mutual goodwill each man felt for the other, a contract was quickly signed, and Adrian Neumann soon became the licensed wholesaler for Crescent Bikes for Berlin and its environs. They’d start with two thousand bicycles at a converted price of fifty marks per bicycle. The numbers made Adrian a little dizzy. If his vision turned out to be wrong, he’d find himself sitting on a mountain of Crescent Bikes and in debt for the rest of his life.

Adolph Schoeninger swept aside his doubts with a flick of a wrist. “If the Germans are even half as mad about bikes as the Americans, you have nothing to worry about. Do the math!” he challenged Adrian. “At a hundred sales a month, you’ll have sold twelve hundred in the first year alone. You sell the rest to subdealers. Believe me, you’d only regret a smaller order.”

They agreed to a first delivery in March 1897. That was fine with Adrian, as long as the first bicycles arrived for the start of the following season.

The two men parted like old friends. Schoeninger presented Adrian with a factory-new bicycle, which Adrian gladly accepted. His old machine was so worn out after its long cross-country journey that the only person who’d be pleased to see it now would be a Chicago scrap dealer.

Adrian could hardly wait to try out his new bike. Schoeninger had assured him that the roads from Chicago to Indianapolis were good. And from Indianapolis he could take the train back to New York in style.

That same evening, he marched into the telegraph office. To the man on duty, who turned out
not
to be German, Adrian dictated:

All well. Assignment completed successfully. Looking forward to getting home and to the future. Adrian.

The addressee was Miss Josephine Schmied, Görlitzer Strasse 27, Berlin, Germany.

Adrian stood helplessly beside his bicycle. An hour earlier, he had passed a tree on which had been nailed a roughly hewn sign that read “Lafayette, 12 miles.” He should have reached the town by now. Had he taken a wrong turn? Tired from riding into a constant headwind, he pedaled on.

He was not, he knew, concentrating as well as he should have been. He had had difficulty focusing on the road ever since leaving Chicago. His mind was spinning with plans for the future.

Soon, he could only vaguely make out the road in front. But there was no trace of a town anywhere. Hadn’t he seen that barn before? He sensed he was riding in circles.

Adrian stopped and lit his lamp. His senses were much sharper than they had been during the day. Every sound in the bushes startled him, and he began breathing faster. He squinted to see better. The road widened a little, then curved. Some way ahead he could see a farmhouse, or perhaps just the ruins of a farmhouse, like so many he had passed. He jumped when he heard a rustling noise behind him. But when he turned around, he saw nothing.
Don’t start imagining things!
he admonished himself and pedaled faster. Just beyond that little clearing in the woods up ahead, he might—

There were three of them. Evil-looking men with hard faces, ragged clothes, and a demeanor that made it clear they had nothing to lose. Two of them jumped out of the spiky bushes and onto the road in front of Adrian, blocking his path. The third came out behind him. Adrian was trapped.

“Money, watch—give me everything you have!” one of the men said, waving a rifle in Adrian’s face.

Adrian pulled his watch from his wrist and handed it over. He could only stand and look on, his heart hammering in his chest. The men stank of whiskey. Oh God . . .

The leader felt the leather wristband of the watch, which had grown limp with wear. “Not good,” he said. “Gold! Give me your gold watch!”

“I don’t have a gold watch!” said Adrian. “Here, my money . . .” With shaking hands, he took out his wallet, and in a move that was both courageous and contemptuous, he tossed it at the men’s feet. There wasn’t much left in it, anyway. He’d have more money wired from Germany when he got to Indianapolis.

As the man who had taken the watch from him bent down to pick up the wallet, the other two laughed and said something in a slang that Adrian didn’t understand.

It was now or never! Adrian took advantage of the moment to make his escape. He took off, pedaling madly, heedless of everything except getting away. But he had to get off the street. He swerved into the bushes. Thorny branches whipped him in the face. One scratched his left eye, but he kept going. A moment later, he was riding across an open field. If only he knew where to go next . . . He could hear the heavy steps of the men some distance behind him. Adrian pedaled even harder.

The shot came without warning and hit him in the back of his left knee. His leg was knocked off the pedal, and he fell backward over his rear wheel. He landed on his back on something hard, a rock or a branch.

Then he passed out.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Ow, you stuck me!” Isabelle spun around as if she’d been bitten by a tarantula, not jabbed with a pin.

Josephine sighed as she took one of the pins she was holding between her lips and attached a large pocket to the back of Isabelle’s jacket. When she was finished, she pulled over a kitchen chair and asked Isabelle to sit down and lean forward.

“All right, imagine that you’re sitting on your bicycle. Put both hands out in front of you. Now reach back with one hand and try to reach the button on the pocket.”

“No problem,” said Isabelle with a shrug. “Look, I can even close it again with one hand.” She jumped up and gave Josephine in quick kiss on the cheek. “You’re a treasure! The jacket’s just perfect. I can fit a sandwich in the pocket, with a bit of fruit and some chocolate, and then we can eat whenever we want, without having to get off. We’ll have the best cycling clothes of them all!”

Jo beamed. “Don’t forget the two breast pockets I sewed on. You can stuff a handkerchief and a few caramels in those. A backpack would restrict you a great deal more, so this will give us a real advantage.”

Each of the women competing in the race was to wear a discreet riding outfit. Susanne Lindberg had explained that each rider would have to supply a pair of dark-colored bloomers for herself, as well as a jacket in dark blue, black, or gray. A red scarf around their necks would identify them as participants in the six-hundred-mile race. Charles Hansen would hand out the scarves to every participant in Copenhagen. When Josephine asked if they would be allowed to wear pants instead of bloomers, Susanne Lindberg had told her no. They did not want to shock the Danish country people unnecessarily. It was most important that they leave a good impression wherever they went.

Jo could not object to that.

Still, if she had to wear bloomers and a jacket, then she would make them as practical as possible. Because they had been unable to find anything suitable in the catalogs, she had decided to modify standard items of clothing to suit her needs. She bought herself a sewing machine at Reutter’s Emporium and went to work, adding pockets, a buttonhole in the cuffs, and a button at the elbow. Now she could easily roll up the sleeve of her jacket, push the button through the buttonhole, and turn it into a short-sleeved jacket. For the bloomers, she had sewn a wide belt of thin but flexible waterproof leather, with a hidden pocket for important documents. That way, neither sweat nor rain could damage them. When Isabelle saw Jo’s practical riding outfit, she absolutely had to have the same thing, so Jo set to work on a second set of clothes.

But when Isabelle then said to her, “Look . . . do you think you could also modify Leon’s things?” Jo had had enough.

“I am
not
a seamstress! Besides, your Leon is such a vain piece of work that nothing I do would be good enough,” she replied, more harshly that she intended.

Instead of getting huffy, Isabelle laughed. “My dear, sweet Leon certainly has a sense of style. The best is only just good enough for him, and he knows exactly what suits him and what doesn’t. I have never met a man with such unerringly good taste.” Her eyes had taken on a dreamy look, and she let out an adoring sigh. “But why should that surprise us? He comes from a large wine-growing estate, after all. His family’s roots go back hundreds of years, and they’re deeply connected to their traditions. My God, you can’t compare Leon to the pale fellows around here. He’s in a class all his own.”

Josephine did not even have a chance to protest, because Isabelle went on.

“His family live like the landed gentry in England. I could listen for hours to his stories about the harvest, when everyone pitches in to gather the grapes into the big presses. And then there are the traditional feasts, when all the villagers sit together at long tables and eat and drink and celebrate.” She sighed longingly. “Oh, I would love to see it all with my own eyes one day.”

Jo furrowed her brow. “A city girl like you out in the country? It wouldn’t be fun for long. I admit I don’t know much about rural life, but when I was down in the Black Forest, all the farmers I saw worked hard. Slogging away in their fields from dawn till dusk, first afraid that a cold spell in spring would freeze the buds on the fruit trees, then fearing thunderstorms and hail in summer. A farmer’s life is no bed of roses, I’m sure of that!”

“Leon’s family lives in Rhineland-Palatinate, not in the Black Forest. And everything in Rhineland-Palatinate is much better and nicer. Besides, I can scarcely believe that the family personally slogs away, as you put it, in the vineyard from dawn till dusk. That’s what you employ other people to do,” Isabelle said haughtily.

Josephine dropped the subject. She went to the oven and took out the baked potatoes she had put in an hour earlier. Jo sprinkled them with a few herbs that she had picked in summer in Frieda’s garden and dried in the garden shed. They smelled irresistible.

“My mouth is already watering.”

While Jo put the potatoes onto two plates, she said over her shoulder. “Leon this, Leon that . . . Don’t you worry that it’s all moving too quickly? You hardly even know the man. Your father would never agree to your marrying him, would he?” She thought of what Clara had said about having to sleep in the bed you had made. But she had no desire to sound older than her years just then.

“You’re starting to sound like Irene,” said Isabelle. “She doesn’t like the idea of me seeing Leon, either. Last weekend, she said to me, ‘The moment Adrian leaves, you throw yourself at the next one!’ Outrageous, isn’t it?”

Josephine gave a neutral shrug. Actually, Irene wasn’t that far off . . .

“She’s just very loyal to her brother. That’s a good thing,” Jo said. “Maybe she’s worried that you’re so in love that you’ll neglect your training. We’ve all got a big goal ahead of us, after all.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that love can give you wings?” Isabelle asked, beaming at Josephine over the top of her plate. “Oh, Jo, you overthink these things. You know, when you’re in love—no, I’ll put it another way—when you
love
, the world suddenly looks completely different. It looks fresh and rosy, like it is covered in icing. All will turn out for the best. I’m sure of it. In the spring we’ll ride in a grand race and show the entire world what we women can do. And as far as Leon and I are concerned—everything will work out there, too.” She patted Jo’s hand patronizingly. “Just wait. The first time you feel Cupid’s arrow, you’ll know where my optimism comes from.”

If you only knew,
thought Josephine. When Adrian’s telegram had arrived two days earlier, she could have hugged everyone in Berlin!

All well. Assignment completed successfully. Looking forward to getting home and to the future. Adrian.

“You’re right,” Jo said in a soft voice. “I’m sure everything will be fine. I certainly want it to be.”

They had just finished eating when there was a knock at the door.

It was the postman with another telegram.

“From Adrian? For
you
? Why doesn’t he write to the club? And why a telegram? Why not a postcard?” Isabelle was aflutter with questions.

“I don’t know,” Jo murmured, embarrassed. “Maybe because I’m always at home and can receive it . . .” She would have liked to put the telegram aside and wait until Isabelle had left to read it. But there was no way to do that. With shaking hands, Josephine tore open the envelope.

Before she knew what happened, Isabelle had snatched the envelope out of her hands.

“Let’s see what Mr. Ride-Across-America has to report!” A moment later, she let the thin sheet of paper drop, her face white as chalk.

“Oh God . . .”

The news spread like wildfire among the club members: a robbery on a lonely back road. A bullet wound. One knee badly injured. And he’d been on his way home! It was a stroke of luck that a family of farmers who’d lost their way found him late that same night. They had loaded him onto their cart and pulled him all the way to a hospital in Chicago, where his wounded knee had finally been seen by a doctor. There was no way that he would be able to travel again for a while.

A knee injury. Exasperating, certainly, but he was lucky nothing worse had happened. That, at least, was the prevailing opinion in the club. Outwardly, Josephine agreed, but that was only one among many feelings swirling inside her just then. How bad was the knee injury? Why didn’t Adrian just get them to bandage it and take the next train to New York? Was he in too much pain? And if he was, what were the doctors doing about it? When would he be fit to travel again?

She wanted to write to him but didn’t even know what hospital he was in. Long, newsy letters would have helped him pass the time and lifted his spirits. But as it was, she had no choice but to send good thoughts his way and hope that, somehow, they arrived.

She missed him terribly. With every day he was gone, her desire to see him grew stronger. She had so much to tell him. Even just telling him about her training regime would take hours.

Every morning at five o’clock, she set off for a two-hour ride through the waking city in the dull light of the gas lanterns. She used every incline she could find to train for climbing Danish hills, and she practiced high-speed cycling on the wide, flat boulevards. Unfortunately, she would have to wait until spring for it to be light enough to ride out into the country again.

After that first training session, she freshened up at home and ate a bracing breakfast. Susanne had emphasized how important it was to eat a healthy diet. Then she went into her workshop and worked there until at least six in the evening. She had more than enough work to keep her busy: many cyclists who only went out riding in the warmer months took their bicycles to her for routine maintenance and cleaning. She enjoyed the work, but it was also hard and tiring. Instead of falling into a lazy heap after work—which she often felt like doing—her next training session would call. Some days went better than others. According to Susanne, regular endurance training was vital. Six hundred miles by bicycle was no trivial undertaking. You needed to be in outstanding condition just to finish. And that condition only came from a thousand and one hours on a bicycle.

On Saturdays and Sundays, the club members who planned to go to Denmark took longer rides together. Jo used the group rides to discreetly observe the physical condition of the others. When it came to sheer hours spent on the bicycle, Isabelle and Luise had a clear advantage: neither worked, so they could ride for as long as they liked. Irene, however, had been working in her father’s company since Adrian had left. Josephine had found her much more likeable since then. And no matter how hard they trained—whether it was raining buckets or so gusty that an icy east wind nearly blew them off the road—Irene almost never complained.

Josephine would have told Adrian all these things and more if she had had an address to write to. But instead she had to make do with putting a candle in the window on Christmas Eve. She leaned the postcard that he had sent her against the candle. On the front, in large, curved letters, were the words “Merry Christmas” with a sprig of mistletoe underneath, decorated with silver glitter. The card was beautiful, but Josephine cared more about the words on the back. “All will be well, even if it takes a little longer.” Not exactly a grand declaration of his love, but Adrian knew that various club members came and went from Josephine’s house, and the card could end up in a stranger’s hands at any time.
All will be well, even if it takes a little longer
—for Josephine, those words sounded more beautiful than any Christmas bells.

In February, Isabelle came down with a terrible cold after getting caught in a snowstorm. Exhausted and fed up, she was restricted to her room with no chance to see Leon.

After a week of reading magazines and consuming broth, she felt overcome by her desire to see him. Still pale and weak, she pulled on a warm jacket, ordered a cab, and went to the club. When Leon saw her, he rode over to the side of the track and jumped off his bicycle.