by Maureen Lang
No one answered when he knocked. It was late and he knew the city was fearful, but when he tried the door, he found it unlocked. A quick search inside showed the door to Leo’s flat open—and abandoned. Evidently whoever had lived here lately hadn’t waited for the White army to find out it was a home connected to revolutionaries.
The moon peeked out from behind a cloud just then, drawing his eye to the chair by the window. For a moment he was there again, sitting in that chair, having awakened from a nightmare to Annaliese’s soothing voice. She’d told him she still trusted him to keep her safe, despite all the war had forced him to do.
Keep her safe . . . If only he could. If only she hadn’t left him, he’d never have stopped trying to do that very thing.
Then he remembered her kiss, and his knees went nearly as weak as they’d been that night.
Nothing would stop him from protecting Annaliese—not the White army or the Red. Not even Jurgen. All he had to do was find her.
37
There was little left to eat, just a bit of dried bread and hard cheese. But to Christophe it was a banquet. He sat in the dark at the table in Leo’s kitchen, his rifle beside him, a pistol in his lap. He had no intention of taking another life so long as he lived, but he didn’t plan on being overtaken by either of the warring armies that might visit this home.
Noise outside the kitchen door sent him to his feet, pistol in the palm of his hand. The light was dull and he saw nothing, but he trusted his ears.
Stepping closer, he stood within the shelter of the door’s arc in case someone should choose to come inside. Slowly the doorknob twisted. Christophe held up his gun, bracing himself against the wall. The door opened quietly, and in one quick movement Christophe slammed it behind the intruder.
“Huey!”
The man stood with his hands up high, a look of such horror at having a gun aimed his way that Christophe nearly wanted to laugh. He lowered the weapon.
“I thought the house was empty,” Christophe said. “Are you and Bertita still living upstairs?”
He shook his head, breathing heavily from the scare. “Not exactly.”
Christophe pulled out a chair for the other man, smiling now in hopes of restoring calm for both of them. “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”
“Everyone’s in hiding from the Whites. I came inside to see if it’s been ransacked—to see if the White army has made the connection to Jurgen yet. If they know to look for him.”
Heart thudding more heavily now than a moment ago, Christophe leaned over Huey. “Are you with him?”
“And Leo, too. They’re safe—and will be even if we can’t win against the White army.”
Christophe nearly grabbed him. “And Annaliese?”
Huey shook his head, bending away from Christophe. “We left her at the warehouse. She’ll be all right. The Whites have no reason to arrest her. She hasn’t been with us since the change to Leviné.”
“I was at the warehouse and she’s not there! Why did you just leave her, without any protection? Where is she now? Did she have a place to go? Do you know where she is?”
Huey bolted to a stand as if under attack once again. “It’s for her own good that we left her, Christophe. Jurgen is in hiding, and if the White army catches him, they’ll shoot him—and maybe anyone with him, too. Is that what you want?”
Christophe took a step back, still clutching his pistol, then shoved it into his pocket. “No. I just want to find her.”
Huey put a hand to his shoulder. “Don’t worry; two people looking for each other are bound to find one another.”
“Two people?”
“Popoff told me she came back to find you.” He grinned. “He heard everything that went on in the warehouse. Everyone did.”
“What are you saying? That she came to the warehouse . . . for me, not for Jurgen?”
Huey laughed. “Leo said he sent someone to fetch you for her, but you never came. Then the battle broke out. What kept you away from her if you’re this eager to be reunited?”
Christophe gripped the back of the nearest chair. “I wasn’t there to receive the message.” His gaze went back to the door, seeing only one thing: the danger that was out there. And Annaliese in the midst of it.
Huey went to the door. With a hand on the doorknob, he faced Christophe. “If I see her, I’ll tell her you’re looking for her. But I would return to Ivo’s if I were you. It won’t be safe in this house for long, once the Whites hear it was a Communist’s home.”
Christophe nodded. “I’ll be gone in a few minutes.” He put a hand to Huey’s arm, delaying his departure. “If you do see her, bring her to Ivo’s. I’ll be there every night until I find her. I’ll spend every one of my days searching—so I can get her out of this city.”
* * *
Annaliese hurried past the spot where she’d first met Odovacar when she’d returned to the city; even now the memory came with a remnant of fear. Just two blocks to go and she would be at Leo’s. No matter what she found there, it would be safer than these streets. Though they were empty, each sound she heard, each sound she made, echoed back to her with tension.
There it was, Leo’s tall town house. As she stepped closer, the moon reappeared and her shadow reached the very spot where Christophe had once stood when he’d thrown pebbles at her window. Her heart twisted at the memory.
There was no sound, no light, no indication at all that anyone still lived here. Probably they were hiding behind locked doors and closed curtains, in the dark so they wouldn’t be noticed. Just like everyone else in the city. She put her ear to the door. No noise whatsoever.
Slowly she opened it, seeing immediately that Leo’s flat was open. The moon lit the abandoned room through the lacy curtains at the front window. The couch was blissfully free of anyone’s presence, inviting hers—though she couldn’t help but wish by some miracle to have found Christophe there once again, sleeping as he had been the night he’d woken and kissed her.
The house felt empty in its utter silence. Had they fled, fearing the White army would find out this had been Jurgen’s home?
It didn’t matter why they were gone. Perhaps it wasn’t safe for her here, either, but she would take the risk for one night anyway. She sat on the couch, wondering if some of Christophe’s nightmares might visit her, too. The last couple of days provided enough material for her own bad dreams, at least for as long as she remained here in Munich.
She would try leaving the city tomorrow, if the trains were running. She would go home. Surely that was safer—
A noise from the kitchen stopped her thoughts. Was that the scrape of a chair on the floor? Her heart shot to her throat. Perhaps she should have checked the other rooms to be sure she was alone.
There was a pillow at the end of the couch, the very pillow that had looked so small and uninviting beneath Christophe’s head. She pressed it beneath her palms, welcoming it to steady her hands, but then abandoned it. She tiptoed toward the kitchen.
Though she heard nothing now, Annaliese was unwilling to convince herself what she’d heard had only been a product of her own nervous tension. She must be certain or she would never find rest.
* * *
Christophe stopped at the kitchen door. Had that been the creak of a floorboard? He’d been sure no one was in the house, and Huey had as much as confirmed it. Certainly an invading army—even a domestic one—wouldn’t be so quiet.
He should leave. He looked out the kitchen window again, intent on following that gaze and resuming his search for Annaliese. Whoever was left in this house was welcome to it.
But curiosity got the best of him. If someone was in the house, he wanted to know who. He withdrew his pistol once again from the folds of his pocket and took two long, silent strides to hide behind the kitchen door.
Nothing. Silence. Perhaps he’d been mistaken. Nerves were bound to do that, conjure danger, even a noise that didn’t exist.
He put a hand on the door that used to swin
g so easily. With a flat palm, he put gentle pressure on the center panel. But it didn’t budge.
* * *
Annaliese pushed but the door wouldn’t move. Had someone blocked the swinging portal to the kitchen? But why? Unless there was someone there . . . right on the other side of this door.
She should run.
No.
She had as much right to be here as anyone else, no matter what laws Communists had imposed about abolishing property rights. Leo had invited her to use this roof for as long as she needed it. And she needed it tonight.
But if it was a man on the other side of that door . . . One man alone might be harder to fight off than a houseful of peasants only looking to stake a claim.
She withdrew her hand, and the door slowly opened. She turned in an instant, sprinting along the quickest route toward the front door.
“Wait!”
But she didn’t. She dashed through the dining area, around the couch in the parlor, almost made it to the door.
“Annaliese!”
She stopped instantly at the threshold, afraid to let herself believe she’d recognized that voice. When she turned, he was already there, pulling her into his arms, saying her name over and again as if he needed assurance that it was Annaliese just as she needed to believe it was him.
When Christophe’s lips came down on hers, she wasn’t sure whose tears she tasted. His or her own.
38
They sat close together on the couch, Christophe’s arm around her, her hand in his free one. And incredibly, she welcomed him. More, she seemed to crave his touch—his kiss—as much as he craved hers.
He knew they should go soon—return to Ivo’s, which was more secure—but it was nearly impossible to break away from her nearness. And there was something he wanted to ask that wouldn’t wait.
“Annaliese,” he said slowly, as if they had no place else to go, nothing more urgent to do than enjoy one another’s company, “why did you leave without telling me where you were going?”
She shifted to look him in the eyes, taking her hand from his to stroke the side of his face. “Because I thought it was best—for you.”
He reclaimed her hand. “For me? How can that be? Don’t you know I’ve been in love with you nearly since the moment I came to that party office? There you were, instructing the artist on how to paint a propaganda poster . . .”
She smiled. “It’s because I’ve been in love with you, too. I wasn’t sure I would be good for you—because of our differences.”
“We’ll talk about that. Perhaps we’ll find we’re not so far apart, after all.”
“Yes! That’s exactly right. It may not have been true before, but it’s true now. There is so much I want to share with you—and learn with you—about God. It won’t be the challenge you might have expected before I left. Oh, Christophe, God is so real to me. I couldn’t see that here; there were so many things in the way. Except you.” She kissed his mouth quickly, her eyes happy and somehow grateful. “He drew me to Him through you, but even you were in the way for a little while. I didn’t want to mimic what you believed. I wanted to find out for myself what is true.”
If Christophe had thought himself dreaming a few moments ago, it was no less true now. Nothing could be further in this moment from the nightmares he suffered on this very couch.
* * *
Though Annaliese had considered more than once how she would tell him why she’d left Munich without a word, she searched his face for signs of understanding. He couldn’t be allowed to think for a moment that she’d wanted to hurt him or that she’d been uncertain how she felt, that there had ever been any real competition between him and Jurgen. Nor could he doubt her faith was as real as his now.
“Christophe,” she whispered, “if you love me as you say you do, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—to stand in our way. No one else, no politics, nothing.”
“You don’t know—you can’t—how many times I’ve prayed for this. For us.” Then he kissed her again, letting his lips linger gently. “You don’t know how I wanted that one kiss we shared in this room to be only our first.”
“Of many,” she added.
He pulled away before she wanted him to, only to grab both of her hands in his. “Yes, the first of many, but not here. I need to get you out of this city. We’ll go to Ivo’s and stay there until I can get both of us on a train to the countryside. It’ll be easier to travel if we change into the bourgeoisie clothes I’ve brought—a dress for you from your home, a suit for me.”
“From my home?”
He nodded. “I was there yesterday. With your parents.”
Her heart, so overused from dancing and soaring since the moment she’d seen his face, bounced again. “My parents! I thought . . . I thought they’d sailed.”
“They still intend to go,” he told her with a frown, “but they’ve had a postponement. It’s your father, Annaliese. He’s been ill.”
Her heart now fell to her stomach. “Is it serious?”
“He’s much recovered. His speech remains a bit unclear, and his vision . . . Your mother says he can see, a little. And now that he’s walking . . .”
She leaned away, covering her face with her hands. “I’ve been so unfair to him, looking at everything from only one side. Cruel, even.” She thought of her grief over Giselle’s death, how she hadn’t considered its impact on her father or the guilt he would feel. Guilt that wasn’t entirely his. Giselle had been wrong too.
Christophe put a hand on her back, drawing her close again. “There will be time enough to make up for that.”
“Not if they’re still sailing. There is so much I would say, to explain . . . and to understand.”
“There would be time for that if we went to America with them.”
She looked at him. “Leave Germany?”
“I’m only asking you to consider it, Annaliese. I think both of us should. You want to leave Munich because of how dangerous it is. The rest of Germany is in just as much trouble. Maybe if we left . . . at least for a while . . .”
Annaliese sank back into the couch, still close to him. She stared straight ahead. Leave Germany . . . after all she’d tried to do with hopes of making it better? after Christophe had fought four years in its name?
But then, seeing the window, she knew even now they were in danger of anything from being arrested by the free corps to becoming victims of the revolution, at the hands of one side or the other.
“Do you want to leave Germany?” she asked him. “You’ve sacrificed far more than I have for this country, after fighting all these years.”
She saw he wasn’t looking at her, either, but straight ahead at the same dark view from the window she’d considered herself.
“I thought they wouldn’t want to fight anymore,” he whispered. “I know that I don’t. And yet they do, out there. I want to leave it behind me. The guns. The fighting. I never want to touch another gun so long as I live. But I’m not sure Germany will let me do that if I stay.”
“But this is home.”
He slid one of his hands around hers. “Whatever we do, Annaliese, wherever we go, as long as we’re together . . . we’re home.”
39
Ivo was happy to see Annaliese again, and because of that his mother welcomed her into the crowded flat as if she were another member of the family. It was near dawn by the time they’d arrived, and so the flat’s two bedrooms were made ready for each of them.
“And for tonight,” Ivo’s mother said as she stood near the door of her own bedroom, the place she’d offered to Annaliese, “you’ll stay in here with me. Away from the children. For as long as you need, ja?”
Annaliese smiled and nodded. “Thank you—so very much.”
By the time Annaliese woke it was midafternoon. She left the little bedroom in search of others, passing three of Ivo’s siblings in the parlor, who stared at her but said nothing, not even when she sent them a smile. She found Christophe already awake, shari
ng a hard roll with another of Ivo’s little brothers in the kitchen. Christophe offered the spot next to him on the bench seat when Annaliese approached the table, and Ivo’s mother settled bread and a cup of coffee in front of her.
“My brother says he used to be your bodyguard,” said the boy whom Christophe had introduced as Klaus. He looked like a smaller version of Ivo, already sporting broad shoulders and big hands. “Why did you need a bodyguard?”
“Because some of the people in the city didn’t like what I wanted to say.”
“Did you say something bad?”
She lifted one shoulder. “I just wanted everyone to get along more fairly.”
“Mother says we should all get along now. That we were fighting for freedom before, that Ivo gave his fingers for freedom. So we should be free now and not fight but get along.”
Annaliese smiled. Freedom—a lovely, powerful word. So easily manipulated.
“Ivo went out to see about the trains,” Christophe told her. “I was going to go, but he thought you might worry we’d become separated again.”
“He was right about that.” She slipped her hand into one of his to emphasize the point. “But is it safe for him to be on the streets?”
“Who could keep him home, that one?” Ivo’s mother complained as she scrubbed dishes at the sink.
Christophe squeezed Annaliese’s hand. “He can pass as a free corps member. Most of them are army soldiers anyway, like us.”
A fracas in the small parlor drew Ivo’s mother away from the sink. She left the kitchen with dripping hands and Ivo’s brother tagged behind as witness, evidently to see how his mother would stop whatever misbehavior was going on.
