While the World Is Still Asleep (The Century Trilogy Book 1) (8 page)

“If you see a coach or someone out for a walk, put the velo down and we’ll hide behind the hedge,” said Lilo, who kept a constant lookout all around.

“Why don’t you just ask Mr. Braun if you can borrow it now and then when he’s away? I mean, it’s just sitting there. Maybe he’ll give you permission,” said Josephine. Lilo’s secretiveness made her so nervous that she cast a glance behind them every few steps as if the devil himself were breathing down their necks. But the harvested fields lay fallow and lonely in every direction, disturbed only occasionally by a crow flying up and cawing as the girls passed by.

Lilo looked at her in horror. “Are you mad? I’m a girl, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“So what? What—”

“I told you what the newspaper said about women who ride bicycles. They’re only meant for men and boys, not for us,
the weaker sex
.” Her last words were heavily laced with sarcasm. “Mr. Braun would never, ever entrust his valuable vehicle to a girl. And what do you think would happen if I went pedaling through the village with my skirt all bundled up? They’d run me out of town.”

Josephine laughed, certain that Lilo was exaggerating.

The lane they were following was icy and bumpy, and Josephine had to focus on steering the bicycle between the largest potholes. After walking along in silence for a while, Josephine said, “Where can you actually buy a machine like this? And how much would one cost? And when was it invented?” These questions—among many others—had been going through her head all night.

“How am I supposed to know all that?” Lilo replied. “Actually, I thought someone from the big city would know more about those kinds of things.”

“I think you have the wrong impression of what life in the city is like,” said Josephine, frowning. “Our neighborhood isn’t all that different from a village. We’ve got a baker and a butcher and a general store where we can buy shoelaces. And I almost never leave.” Then she changed the subject. “But how is it possible for you to just disappear like this for a few hours a day? Don’t you have homework to do? Or chores? When I’m at home, there’s always so much that needs to be done that I hardly have any time for myself. I really only have the visits to your great-aunt Frieda—I won’t let anything keep me away from those.”

Instead of answering Josephine’s question, Lilo asked her to tell her more about the great-aunt she had only ever heard stories about.

Josephine obligingly described Frieda’s garden, her many books, and her interest in God and the world. “Frieda has a new hobby every month. When I left to come here, she’d just taken up wood carving,” she said.

“Interested in God and the world. That sounds nice,” said Lilo. “My father has no particular interest in the world or in me. The only thing he cares about is his work. That’s why I can do—or not do—whatever I like.” She snapped a bare twig from a bush and broke it into little pieces. “When my mother was still alive, things were different. My father was the caretaker at the Stag before it was converted into a sanatorium, and it kept him very busy. But in the evenings, once the work was done, he was always there for Mother and me. He carved wooden horses for me and built a stall for them. He played hide-and-seek and blind man’s bluff with me. And on my birthdays, he set up the barn so that my friends and I could jump down from the hay bales.” Lilo smiled.

A shudder ran through Josephine at the mention of the word
barn
. She said, “Your mother died? I’m sorry.”

Lilo nodded. “Four years ago. A cow kicked her in the stomach. The kick must have injured an internal organ. The doctor couldn’t tell us exactly what it was, but Mother completely lost her appetite. She used to go about holding her stomach and complaining about the pain. She tried to keep up with her work, milking the cows and feeding the goats and sheep and so on. But one day we found her lying unconscious in the goat pen. She died six months later. The last weeks were terrible. She couldn’t even get out of bed.” Lilo took a deep breath. It seemed to Jo that it was still difficult for Lilo to talk about it. Shoulders sagging, she stopped walking.

Josephine laid her painful right arm around Lilo’s shoulders. She knew only too well how Lilo felt.

“After the funeral, Father sold the herd and said that from then on, he would make his living only as a caretaker. So in addition to looking after the sanatorium, he took on the caretaking duties for some of the summer residents, like Mr. Braun. If he lost one job, he always had the other, and that was important because he wanted to look after me as well as he could.” Lilo paused again and drew breath. “It all sounds very caring, doesn’t it?”

“But it isn’t?”

“You know, I look like my mother. My father says that when he looks at me, he sees her again as a young woman. And I don’t think he can stand that. So he goes and buries himself in his work, all so he doesn’t have to be anywhere near me.” Lilo shrugged. “I don’t think he even noticed that I finished school in the fall. All my school friends already have an apprenticeship or a job. Two of them are already engaged. But God alone knows what’s to become of me.”

Josephine laughed. “I know just what you mean. I don’t have the slightest idea what to expect when I go home. My mother’s probably found a maid’s position for me. She and my father can hardly wait to be rid of me.” Even as she spoke, she realized the old pain had faded just a little. Things simply were what they were. She had to accept that some things wouldn’t change.

As though reading her mind, Lilo said, “What can you do? Life is what it is. And nothing’s ever gotten better just by complaining about it. I’ll start looking for a job after Epiphany. There’s a new sanatorium opening in Schömberg. For the upper classes, they say. I’m sure they’ll be able to use workers there. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even become a nurse.” Lilo’s voice had returned to its usual cheerfulness.

Josephine looked at her new friend with admiration. “A nurse! That’s quite a plan . . .”

“Don’t you have plans? If not, you’ve only got yourself to blame,” said Lilo. “For now though, I mostly do whatever I feel like. And you know what that is right now?” She hardly waited for Josephine to shake her head before she said, “Bicycle riding, as often as I can!” With a laugh, she took the handlebars from Josephine and pushed the machine onto the street.

The street was ideal for riding. Dead straight, it ran through the hilly landscape, the winter-weary fields and meadows.

Lilo, of course, wanted to ride first. Josephine watched as she flew down the road, growing smaller as the distance grew between them. She could not get over that it was possible to go so fast without sitting astride a horse. Or inside a train, itself a wonder of the modern age. Josephine furrowed her brow. Even if she saw it a thousand times with her own eyes, she somehow still could not believe it.

Josephine’s second time on the bicycle went much more smoothly. As she set her second foot fearlessly on the pedal she even enjoyed the sensation of losing touch with the ground.

“Don’t go getting up to any more tricks!” Lilo shouted after her as she started to roll away. Lilo had told her to ride only as far as an old linden tree with a bench around its base, then slow down and turn back, and Josephine had nodded obediently. The tree wasn’t even visible from where they were, so she would get to ride a decent distance.

Press down on the left, then down on the right and left again—with every turn of the wheels, Josephine felt more secure. The air swept by, cool and refreshing on her cheeks. A few locks of hair came loose from her braid, fluttering in the wind like silken bands.

Winter was so quiet out here. So different from the city. She was alone, alone in an ocean of silence. And she could fly! Could fly away from everything. The faster she rode, the colder the wind against her face, the colder her hands, and the clearer her thoughts.

Her little brother was dead. Nothing and no one on this earth would ever bring him back to life. But she was alive! She had legs that could drive the pedals hard and hands that could hold tightly to the handlebars. Felix would never get to experience this sensation. Didn’t she owe it to him to keep breathing, to keep living, for herself, as well as for him? Didn’t she owe it to him to do all the things that he no longer could?

Life lay ahead of her like this road. A little bumpy and stony, but full of promise and excitement. Maybe she would even have plans of her own, like Lilo.

The muscles in Josephine’s thighs burned as she turned the pedals more and more quickly. She was free! She could ride away from all the sadness in her life.

Josephine squinted hard against the wind and tears ran down her face, cleansing her of all her sins. A roaring began in her ears and her lungs burned, but she did not cough, did not feel even the slightest need to clear her throat.

Who had she been wanting to chastise all this time? God, perhaps, for letting her survive? Shouldn’t she be thanking him instead? After all, the fire had almost engulfed her as well. But she had escaped.

Faster, faster, fly away! The linden with the bench was already in sight when the iron clamp that had been crushing Josephine’s chest for so long finally gave way. With a wail of redemption and release, Josephine cried, “I’m still alive!”

Her coughing abated. Her body and her spirit healed. When she looked at her face in the mirror above the washbasin, she was amazed at how much it had changed. Her cheeks were a rosy pink—the locals called them “apple cheeks.” Her skin had developed a healthy glow, and her hair, which shone like gold straw, was a hand longer than when she had arrived. Now she could style it into a lovely, long braid. Her lips were full and as red as if she was wearing lipstick. Her body had changed, too. Thanks to all the good food at the sanatorium, she had gained weight, which had developed into beautiful, feminine curves that Jo had never before seen on herself. In the sanatorium, she had finally come to know her own body for the first time. When she had first arrived, she had known only that she had two legs for walking, two arms for working, and a strong back. Now, she discovered that her skin had taken on a mother-of-pearl sheen. And that her nipples were pink, and they crinkled when she touched them. She was young. And she was pretty.

On April 4, 1890, Josephine was declared to be cured, and she was discharged from the sanatorium.

Sister Agatha, Roswitha, and some of the patients gathered in front of the Stag to wave good-bye to her. With eyes both smiling and weeping, Josephine gave them small gifts that she had bought in the village. Lilo was not there. “I hate good-byes,” she had said.

A few hours later, Josephine was sitting on a train, heading toward Berlin, watching the treetops of the Black Forest diminish in the distance. What a wonderful time she had had in Schömberg! How well, how deeply, she had come to know the unique landscape and its clean air.

Josephine thought of Lilo and smiled. They had promised to write to each other at least once a month. And Lilo wanted to visit her in Berlin, perhaps as soon as that summer.

Chapter Six

In lieu of a greeting, her mother had stayed at the sink and said, “Let’s get one thing straight. As of this minute, your life of indolence is over. Now that you’re no longer in school, you’ll help your father in the smithy. After all that’s happened, this is the least we can expect from you.”

Josephine set her suitcase on the floor and looked at her mother in dismay. “But I thought you would find a job for me, just as you did for Margaret and Gundel.” She wanted to earn money. Her
own
money.

“A position for the little miss?” her mother snorted. “Maybe in some fine household where you can lie in a warm bed until seven every morning and finish work at seven every day—is that what you were thinking? Haven’t you had enough of being idle?” Without another word, her mother picked up a basket of laundry and disappeared into the backyard.

What a welcome,
thought Josephine as she unpacked her case. Her mother had not asked her a single question about the trip or about her health. Angry and disappointed, Jo took the Black Forest ham that Joachim Roth had given her to bring to Frieda, and she left the house.

She rang the bell at the Berg family’s house first. The door flew open a few seconds later.

“Josie! Finally! I’ve been waiting for you all morning,” Clara cried. “Oh, I missed you so much! Berlin was so miserably dull without you.” They fell into each other’s arms before Josephine even made it inside.

“You look wonderful, really revived. Your skin is downright glowing. And your hair, too. Watch out, or I’ll get jealous! The sanatorium seems to have done you a great deal of good.” Clara stroked Josephine’s cheek and hair in admiration. “Dear Josie . . .”

A pleasant feeling surfaced in Josephine at that moment. It was good to be home after all. “Let’s go visit Frieda, then I won’t have to tell everything twice,” she said and hooked Clara’s arm in hers.

“What is Schömberg like?”

“How did you fare down there?”

“Did you make any friends? With Lieselotte? How wonderful!”

“How did they cure your cough?”

Frieda and Clara peppered her with a thousand questions, and Josephine happily answered all of them as they sat in Frieda’s kitchen and tried the ham Josephine had brought back.

Old Frieda was particularly impressed that Lieselotte and Josephine had been riding a man’s bicycle.

“I would have been up for an adventure like that myself, in my younger years,” she said. “These days, I have to content myself with other hobbies.” She gestured toward a pile of colorful cards on the table.

Reading cards . . . Josephine smiled at Frieda’s new passion. How long would this one last? Then, brazenly, she said, “How do you know you’re too old to ride a bicycle if you’ve never tried? You could buy a bicycle, then—”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Frieda broke in, laughing. “Riding a bicycle is
your
dream, not mine.”

Josephine looked at her aging friend. “How did you know that? It really is my greatest dream to one day have a bicycle of my own.”

“What a crazy notion . . . but that’s what I like about you, my child. Dreams are as important as the air we breathe, I always say. When I was younger, there was no room for dreams. So I grant myself a few
smaller
ones now.” She fell silent for a moment. “But you’re still young, and the world is yours. And do you know what’s even better than dreaming?” Frieda’s eyes sparkled mischievously.

Josephine looked at her curiously.

“Making your dreams come true. That, of course, takes some doing . . .”

“But that’s just what I was planning to do,” said Josephine. “I wanted to put aside every penny I could earn as a maid and save until I had enough for my own bicycle. But my mother’s just announced that I have to work in the smithy, and I won’t get a penny for it, that much is certain.”

“Maid! Smithy boy!” Frieda sighed. “I tried so hard to convince your mother to send you to a secondary school for girls, so you could keep studying.”

A secondary school for girls?
That wouldn’t help much,
Josephine thought, but she said nothing.

“I think you’d be better off dropping this whole bicycle-riding business,” said Clara, who had followed the conversation in silence up to that point. “It’s really very dangerous. We constantly have gentlemen coming into the pharmacy asking for ointment and bandages because they’ve fallen off their boneshakers and opened up their knees or their noses. The Beiersdorf company must be rich off the money we make selling their bandages.”

“You make it sound like Berlin’s streets are teeming with bicycles. I haven’t seen a single one,” said Josephine.

“It’s becoming more and more popular,” Clara replied. “My mother thinks riding bicycles is terribly chic. Would you believe that she actually wants my father to buy one for us?”

“Well? Is he going to?” asked Josephine, sensing an opportunity. Riding bicycles in Berlin was suddenly
chic
?

“My father? Never! For one thing, he says a bicycle is horribly expensive. Second, you have to drive a long way to even be
able
to buy one. And third, he doesn’t have time for such a hobby. Besides, hobbies are only for rich people with time on their hands, like Moritz Herrenhus, who owns the clothing factory.
He
has a bicycle.”

“Moritz Herrenhus? The father of Isabelle, the girl with the red hair?” Josephine’s eyes widened.

Clara nodded. “That’s the one. Strange, I haven’t thought about Isabelle for ages . . . I don’t even know whether she still lives at home. They may have shipped her off to some genteel boarding school by now, perhaps even overseas?”

Isabelle Herrenhus was a year older than they were. Many years earlier, when they were all little and Moritz Herrenhus’s factory was still new, she was always out with the other children in the street. They had played hide-and-seek, hopscotch, and tag. Often, they had teased pale, red-haired Isabelle. “Witch girl!” they cried at her. And, “Show us your broom!” And they had laughed whenever they succeeded in making the girl cry. Eventually, a high white wall appeared around the family’s villa. And Isabelle disappeared. No one missed her much, and the children’s games simply went on without her.

“After church this morning I saw Moritz Herrenhus riding in Schlesischer Busch. He cycles the way other rich men play hockey or tennis. The way they show off with their boneshakers, it’s positively embarrassing,” said Clara.

Boneshaker. It was the second time Clara had used the word. Josephine would have to mention it in her next letter to Lilo!

She sighed yearningly.

“Oh, you can’t imagine the feeling of freedom it gives you! The speed . . . It’s like you’re flying. And it’s not that dangerous. I simply must find a way to ride one again.”

“Are you mad? Don’t you know what the papers are saying about women who ride bicycles? They’re all talking about how they’re corrupting the morals of the female sex.”

“Lilo told me about that, but I didn’t want to believe it . . .” said Josephine.

“One needn’t put too much store in everything they write in the newspapers,” said Frieda. “The young women in question, if you ask me, were not particularly smart when they decided to ride through the Tiergarten. If they had ventured out into the open countryside, they could have had their fun and no one would have taken any notice.”

Clara frowned, but Josephine nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! Lilo was always careful to ensure that the coast was clear.”

Frieda laughed. “I’m liking that girl more and more. I hope they’re able to visit this year. I’ve invited her and her father so many times, but nothing has ever come of it.”

“Isabelle’s father . . .” said Josephine slowly. “Do you think he’d let me have a look at his bicycle?”

“Josie, you can’t just walk up to his villa and knock on the door, not for something like that,” Clara said, appalled at the thought.

“And why not?” Josephine said, lifting her chin.

“Because . . . because . . .” Clara looked to Frieda, but Frieda said, “It’s worth a try. Why don’t you two just go by and see if Isabelle is home? She might be happy to see you again after all these years.”

“We’ll do it!” said Josephine, then cleared her throat. “And there’s one more thing . . . From now on, could you call me Jo?”