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

by Petra Durst-Benning

  “You won’t fall over. I showed you how it works,” said Lilo with touch of impatience.

  Josephine nodded miserably. “I know, I know. But I don’t trust myself.” While her left foot rested on the pedal, her right remained on the ground as if it had put down roots.

  “Then get off and let me ride. I don’t get this opportunity often, either. I won’t get to ride anymore once Mr. Braun comes back to Schömberg.” Lilo was already reaching for the handlebars.

  Josephine chewed her bottom lip. If she didn’t trust herself now . . . she might never get another chance.

  “Just a little ways, straight ahead, OK?” said Josephine, looking beseechingly at her new friend.

  Lilo grinned. “Do you think I’d let you ride down the mountain on your first try? And riding around a corner is also an art. You won’t master that the first time, either. Just go as far as that cluster of three trees up ahead, then stop pushing the pedals.”

  That didn’t sound too difficult. Josephine took a deep breath, lifted her right foot, and set it on the right pedal. Now she had to be quick. “Push, push, and don’t stop pushing,” Lilo had told her.

  The bicycle started to wobble forward. With every turn of the wheels, the movement became more fluid.

  “I think I can . . . do it!” Josephine laughed, moving her legs in vigorous rhythm.

  “That’s good. But hold the handlebars straight. You’re all over the path!” Lilo ordered as she ran along beside Josephine.

  “So what? That’s why the path is there!” Josephine shouted. Then she let out a cry of joy. Elation filled her heart, her head, her entire body. “This is amazing! Lilo, I feel like I’ve grown wings.”

  “Crazy, isn’t it? Now stop pushing on the pedals and you’ll slow down,” said Lilo.

  “Slow down? What for?” Instead of following Lilo’s instructions, Josephine pedaled harder and harder. She wanted to fly. She wanted to see the trees zooming past as if she were inside a train.

  “Don’t! Stop!” With the hand she’d been using to stabilize Josephine, Lilo now tugged at the handlebars. For a moment, Josephine almost lost her balance, but then she found her rhythm again.

  “In a minute, just a bit farther . . .”

  The last thing she wanted was to stop. She wanted to ride! To feel the slipstream, the icy prickling of the air against her cheeks, her hair lifted by the wind.

  “Stop now, you silly fool! After the next curve the path starts to go downhill. It’s much too danger—”

  Before Josephine knew it, she was already in the bend in the path. The track, which had been going more or less straight through the trees just a moment earlier, now wound down to the village in a series of steep curves. Oh my Lord, what now?

  From one second to the next, Josephine started gaining speed, and it was only with a huge effort that she managed to scrape around the first three or four curves. Handlebars left, right, farther right, left. Her feet were off the pedals and scraping desperately over the crusted surface, but they found no grip, and she slipped and slithered on. She was leaning far forward over the handlebars. She would soon go headfirst over the handlebars and . . .

  “Lilo! Help!”

  “Into the forest! Steer left! You have to turn the velo uphill!” Lilo’s voice was shrill and frightened—and very far away.

  Uphill? Left, right, left . . . Everything was going so fast, faster than Josephine could think. She saw trees everywhere and no way through. With a jerk, Josephine yanked the handlebars to the left. The front wheel slammed into a fir tree and she was flung over the handlebars and onto the forest floor, her cheek scraping the hard bark of the tree as she fell.

  “Jo? Josephine?”

  Someone was shaking her right arm. Searing flames shot through her skin. Groaning, she opened her eyes.

  “Have you broken anything? Can you move your arms? And your legs?” Lilo bent down over Josephine’s curled body, her eyes wide with dread.

  Josephine moved her right foot first, gingerly, then her left. Her shoes were ruined, that much was clear. She had the metallic taste of blood on her tongue. All her limbs, especially her right arm, hurt. Her joints ached and her lower back felt like it might break in two, but otherwise . . .

  Groaning, she pulled herself up until she could lean against the tree that had so brazenly stood in her path moments earlier. She looked at Lilo, eyes shining.

  “Can I have another go?”

  The bicycle was intact, aside from a scratch on the front of the frame that Lilo said she could hide with some paint from her father’s workshop.

  Josephine, who had so often struggled with God above, said a silent prayer of thanks that she had been so lucky.

  Lilo was furious. She complained bitterly the whole way home, as she pushed the bicycle, and Josephine, dejected, hobbled along beside her. How could anyone be so senseless? Hadn’t Lilo said loudly and clearly that Jo should ride more slowly? She had gone to all the trouble of giving Jo a riding lesson, and that was how Jo had repaid her?

  The businessman’s house, from which Lilo had “borrowed” the bicycle, was already in sight when Lilo suddenly stopped. She took a deep breath and grinned mischievously at Josephine.

  “But it was fun, right?”

  Back at the sanatorium, Josephine sneaked up to her room. She examined her shoes gloomily. They were positively shredded from her attempts to slow down. Thank God she had a second pair with her.

  Next, she carefully washed her blood-smeared face. Her right shoulder still throbbed, the pain growing by the minute. What if she really had broken it?

  “I slipped on some ice,” she said to Sister Agatha, who immediately bent and twisted the arm in every direction and pronounced it to be nothing more than a sprain. Painful, certainly, but not as bad as a broken bone. An ointment bandage with comfrey would take care of the worst of the pain.

  “Well, don’t you know how to start off the new decade,” said the nurse, at which Josephine burst out laughing. Sister Agatha could only shake her head in incomprehension.

  The two young women met up again at Mr. Braun’s house at the edge of the village the very next day.

  “Can you even ride with your arm like that?” Lilo asked, pointing at the sling wrapped around Josephine’s right arm.

  Jo slipped her arm out of the sling. “I’m just wearing it to please Sister Agatha. It’s fine,” she said, suppressing a squeal of pain.

  “I must be insane, letting you back on the velo after your last escapade,” said Lilo, unlocking the shed in which the bicycle was stored. “But I’m telling you, from now on, we practice on level ground! I know a street where hardly anyone ever goes. It used to connect the village with a house in the hills, but the house has been empty for years. It’s quite a ways out of town, but the road is perfect for riding.”

  Josephine didn’t care, as long as she got to ride the bicycle again. As she pushed the heavy machine along the uneven country lane flanked by thick hedges, she thought about how wonderful the handlebars felt in her hands. So soft and round and heavy all at once.

  “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 wo
uld 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 escape
d.

  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.