While the World Is Still Asleep (The Century Trilogy Book 1) (36 page)

How sweet his lips were! Isabelle could have stayed in his embrace forever. But she had something important to tell him.

They walked into the clubhouse hand in hand, where Isabelle announced to the rest of the assembled team, “I’ve had it with the grind. I’m out. The stupid race can go to hell!”

Of course, Josephine, Luise, and even Irene tried to change her mind, and many others gave her good advice for how to make the training palatable again. But Isabelle simply shook her head to all of it. She didn’t give a damn what the others thought of her. She was fed up.

But what she had not counted on was Leon’s reaction. The man who otherwise took everything he encountered with enviable nonchalance, the man who had proved unflappable until that point, took her firmly by the arm and dragged her out of the building.

“How can you throw away our great adventure, just like that? You and me, six hundred miles together, on the road . . . Doesn’t that mean anything to you? I thought you loved me!”

“My decision has nothing to do with our love. I’m just exhausted by the eternal drills! I feel sick just thinking about getting on a bicycle. Sweetheart, please, you have to understand.”

Leon shook his head. “I understand nothing. Especially that you think of training as a drill. Don’t you have a friend who’s a pharmacist’s daughter? Why don’t you get a few things from her that will make the riding easier? That’s what Veit and I do. And all the others who ride long distances.”

“Do you mean coca or kola? Doping stuff?” Isabelle frowned. “Irene says it’s dangerous garbage.”

“Irene!” Leon made a dismissive gesture. “What does she know? Did I ride seven hundred and fifty miles from Paris to Brest and back, or did she? Who do you believe? Your boring clubmate or me, one of Europe’s most experienced and successful long-distance cyclists?” He led her to one of the benches set up beside the track and sat her down.

“Have you ever heard of Otto Ekarius?”

Isabelle shook her head. At least Leon no longer appeared as upset as he had two minutes earlier.

“Ekarius works as a doctor in Alsace. God knows what made him start investigating the effects of exotic plants like kola and coca. Maybe his soldiers needed a little pepping up,” he laughed. “In any case, Ekarius created several preparations from the kola nut and coca leaves, and many good pharmacies sell them. A sip of juice, a few small pills, and you’ll feel better than you’ve felt for a long time. You’re capable of doing things that you would never have believed you could do. Fatigue all but disappears, and you practically have to force yourself to stop! Take it from me: it’s not some witches’ brew. It’s a gift from heaven. Here, try it now.” He held out a hand to her.

Isabelle stared uncertainly at the white tablets in his palm. Was that the solution she was looking for?

“But what’s the point? What use is it to me if I take those? There’s no way we’ll have anything like that in Denmark, and then what?”

“We’ll see,” replied Leon in an easy tone. “Besides, now is now and later is later. Go ahead. Try it. You’re not normally such a chicken!” He laughed mockingly. “Or have I been wrong about you?”

Isabelle took five of the tablets and tossed them all into her mouth. They tasted slightly bitter and were hard to swallow.

“What now?”

Leon grinned. “Now we ride. What else?”

Chapter Thirty

May 1, 1897, was a very special day. At least for the five young women gathered at the train station who were about to embark on the adventure of their lives: Josephine, Isabelle, Irene, Luise, and Lilo, who had arrived in Berlin at the start of March to train with the others.

Unlike her father, Lilo had never held it against Josephine that she had inherited Frieda’s house. She had instead congratulated her friend on her good fortune. Lilo’s life had changed a great deal over the last few years. Shortly after starting her apprenticeship to become a nurse in the newly built luxury sanatorium in Schömberg, she had fallen in love with the sanatorium’s owner. They married a short time later, and Lilo became a well-to-do wife with enough time to pursue her own interests, which, of course, included cycling. She had taken part in a six-day race in Paris a couple of years before, and a year later, when women’s racing was banned in Germany, she participated in the first official world championships for women in Austria. Her husband cheerfully funded Lilo’s passion for cycling, going so far as to dedicate an entire wall of the sanatorium’s dining hall to her sporting successes. The collection of newspaper articles, entry forms, trophies, and cycling memorabilia had grown year after year. So it was no surprise that Josephine had asked Lilo to take part in the Denmark race.

When Susanne Lindberg heard who the fifth German rider would be, she was thrilled. Lilo Ofterschwang was known throughout Europe as a highly experienced and consistently fair sportswoman.

Family, friends, husbands, and clubmates had all come to send off the women. There were even a few reporters, though that was mainly because Leon Feininger and Veit Merz were riding as well.

The only person missing was Adrian Neumann. It seemed that new complications with his knee injury had prolonged his stay in America.

“Watch out, that’s valuable freight you’ve got there!” Isabelle shouted at one of the porters assigned to load the bicycles onto the train.

She threw her arms companionably around Josephine’s and Lilo’s shoulders.

“We’re off! Finally! Isn’t it fantastic?”

Lilo nodded. “Now we’ll find out if all our training’s been worth it.”

“And you nearly missed it,” said Josephine, giving Isabelle a friendly shove. “Lucky that Leon was able to persuade you to keep going.”

“Actually, we should thank Dr. Ekarius for his help in getting Isabelle to stick with it,” said Leon with a grin.

The others looked confused, unfamiliar with the name of the doctor.

Lilo held up a leather satchel. “Just in case anyone gets hungry on the trip . . . I had a delicatessen make us a few nice morsels.”

“I hope it’s healthy. Otherwise Susanne won’t be pleased,” said Josephine with a smirk.

Lilo shrugged. “Duck foie gras and a glass of sparkling wine. Can you think of any better sports food?”

Laughter rang out all around her.

Clara stood a little apart, rolling the baby carriage back and forth as she listened to the excited banter.

Josephine, Isabelle, and Lilo—the cloverleaf. They got on so well together. She had once been one of them—part of a four-leaf clover. A feeling of fury and sadness crept over her—not for the first time—and she felt a keen sense of loss.

Why was Gerhard so preoccupied with women riding bicycles? Couldn’t he find something else to spend his energies on? There were so many social ills: the high mortality rate among children in the workers’ districts, for example. Or the catastrophic conditions in some of Berlin’s hospitals, where overworked doctors and too few staff members barely kept things from descending into chaos. Why didn’t Gerhard throw himself into the fray against such deplorable—but real—problems, instead of his never-ending witch hunt against women cyclists? Clara couldn’t listen to his droning sermons anymore. He had absolutely forbidden her from having any sort of contact with Josephine and Isabelle. He called them the “businessman’s tramp” and the “workshop slattern.” If he had known that she was here to see the cyclists off at the station, all hell would have broken loose!

She felt fortunate that Gerhard had told her he’d be having lunch with a colleague that day. Just minutes after he had left the house, she had grabbed the carriage and hurried off with Matthias.

A brass band struck up a march, and Clara looked anxiously into the carriage, hoping the music would not wake her boy. But Matthias went on sleeping peacefully.

Matthias. Her darling. He was all that mattered. He needed her. And Gerhard needed her, too. How could she forget that even for a moment? Clara took a deep breath, then stepped forward lightheartedly to join the gathered women.

“Here, I brought a few things for all of you! Ointment for grazes and a few bandages, just in case. And some cough drops and peppermints.” She handed the package to Josephine with a smile.

“I fear we’re going to need all of it. Thank you!” Josephine handed the package to Lilo, then threw her arms around Clara. “Keep your fingers crossed for us, won’t you?”

“Of course! You’ve got to show everyone what we women can do, after all,” said Clara, her voice breaking with her tears.

It was his cologne. A whiff of it mixed with the odor of disinfectant in the hallway. Gerhard was there. For whatever reason, he had not gone to have lunch with his colleague. Clara picked up her son from his carriage and stepped inside.

The closer he got to Berlin, the more excited Adrian became. Soon! Soon he would have done it!

When he had begun the journey home the previous autumn, he never would have believed that it would take him so long. Now, his first shipment of bicycles had actually arrived in Germany ahead of him. His father and his sister had accepted all two thousand bicycles on his behalf and organized their storage in an enormous, empty warehouse. Adrian had no idea of what his family thought about his highly speculative adventure. But he would soon find out.

Adrian looked eagerly out the window of the compartment. His warehouse was somewhere out there. He could hardly wait to inspect the Crescent Bikes. Buying and selling bicycles . . . that was all that he—the most passionate cyclist of them all—had left. He
had
to succeed . . .

He could still not believe that it had taken him so long to return. When he’d first been injured, experienced surgeons had immediately set to work to fix his damaged knee. Right after the operation, they had predicted that he’d be up and riding a bicycle again in a few weeks.

That’s when things had begun to go wrong. No matter what disinfectants or salves the nurses used, the wound simply would not heal. Instead, the ointments they had applied mixed with the pus and other fluids oozing from the wound, and the malignant mixture found its way into his bloodstream. Instead of healing, he’d gotten blood poisoning! The nurses quickly applied leeches, and his leg was cupped several times a day.

Thousands of miles on a bicycle, a bullet wound, and now blood poisoning and a raging fever—it was all too much for Adrian’s weakened constitution. He fell into a coma for several weeks. After waking again, which few in the hospital believed would ever actually happen—Adrian wanted to know how he had given death the slip. The doctors hemmed and hawed and tossed medical expressions around, but he still didn’t understand how he’d survived.

It was one of the nurses who finally revealed to whom Adrian owed his recovery: an aging Potawatomi—an Indian that the man in the bed next to Adrian’s had convinced the hospital to call in. Back when the old man’s tribe had lived in the marshlands surrounding Chicago, he had been a medicine man. Now, though, he dwelled in one of the poorest of Chicago’s suburbs, where Adrian’s neighbor also lived. One evening, when most of the doctors had already gone home, the medicine man had appeared at his bedside and examined his leg as Adrian lay there almost lifeless. The next day, the old man returned and smothered Adrian’s knee and leg in a foul-smelling paste concocted from herbs. He came back the following day and the next one after that, removing the old dressing and reapplying fresh paste each time. The doctors and nurses resigned themselves to letting the medicine man work. Their patient had nothing to lose.

After ten days, the wound had healed. All that remained was a clean, pink scar though the knee itself could no longer bend. Adrian woke from his coma. When he found out what had happened, it was too late: the man in the next bed had been discharged days earlier. But he badgered the hospital administration until they gave him the man’s address. He took a horse and carriage out to the run-down district, thanked both men with all his heart, and gave each of them a hundred dollars.

Adrian’s thoughts were interrupted by a shrill scream of brakes. The train was pulling into the station. He was home.

His apartment was stuffy, and he opened the windows to let in the warm May wind. Then he washed, changed, and took a small leather etui out of his travel bag. Then he left his apartment.

Josephine’s house was locked. The cat rubbed against him and meowed.

On the workshop hung a sign: “Closed.” Beneath that, it explained that items for repair could be dropped off or picked up again starting in mid-May.

Had Josephine gone away somewhere? And if so, where? And why
now
? he wondered, as he stared helplessly at the closed shutters. He needed answers. The emporium owner, who was standing out on the street nearby, would be sure to know. Josephine did business with him regularly. And if that didn’t work, he would go to the clubhouse. He would only visit Isabelle as a last resort.

Adrian had just turned to leave when he heard a low sobbing sound come from the garden. He started, and his heart beat faster. Was Josephine perhaps still there?

“Clara?” Adrian looked in horror at the figure curled up on one of Josephine’s garden chairs. Clara’s arms were covered in red weals and her right eye was badly swollen. She was weeping.

Suppressing a cry of pain, Adrian lowered himself onto another chair. Gently, he raised Clara’s chin and sought eye contact with her. “Who did this?” suspecting the answer even as he asked the question.

Instead of replying, Clara made an almost imperceptible motion with her head. Don’t mention it. Act as if nothing had happened.

Adrian sighed and tacitly agreed to do as she wished. He was tired from traveling, crushed that Josephine was away, and not fit to wade into a battle between a warring couple.

Clara did him a favor in return: she did not ask him about his condition. But her eyes told him that she knew. “Don’t you want to know where Josephine is?” she asked quietly. Haltingly, she began to explain. About Susanne Lindberg’s visit, about Jo’s decision to ride in the race, and about the grueling training regime she and the others had endured.

“They cycled in all weather, even if it was snowing!” A hint of a smile crossed Clara’s face. Her voice grew stronger as she spoke; the other women’s courage seemed to be rubbing off on her.

“Josephine, Isabelle, Luise, and my sister are on their way to a six-hundred-mile race?” Adrian was dumbfounded at the thought. He wanted to know more.

“They’ve been riding ten or twelve hours at a time the last few weeks. Can you even imagine?”

“I met Charles Hansen years ago at a race meeting. He’s a careful man. I don’t doubt that he’s organized the race as well as it could be done and that he’s looking out for the safety of the cyclists.” Adrian was still trying to overcome his surprise, but elation was growing inside him. His Jo, off on such a grand adventure!

“A few men are going along, too. As a kind of protective escort. Veit Merz and Leon Feininger are among them.”

“I know Veit Merz, of course, but I can’t say I’ve ever heard of Leon Feininger.”

“Oh, that will change soon enough. Trust me!” Clara said with a trace of mischief.

Adrian would have liked to find out more about the man who had become a permanent guest at the cycling club, but Clara said nothing more about him.

“I would have loved to go along. Not as a rider, God forbid! But as an observer, as a tourist, as they say these days. But my husband . . .” Clara bit down on her lip. She summarized the campaign that her husband had instigated against the women’s cycling club.