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

by Petra Durst-Benning

  “Why are you taking such a horrible tone with me? As if I want to be sitting here drinking coffee with you. It was your father’s idea for me to play nursemaid, not mine. I’d much rather be chewing on a turkey leg now.” In her agitation, she swept a red curl that had worked loose from her elaborate hairdo out of her face. Then she grabbed her pearl-studded handbag and stood up. When her father found out about this crude young man’s impertinence, he’d see why she didn’t want to spend another minute with him. And even if he didn’t see it, what difference did that make to her?

  She looked down at Adrian. His own wrath seemed to have dissipated somewhat after her display of righteous fury, and he was now looking more unsettled than angry.

  “But there’s one thing you have to explain to me—what was that you said about my father’s money?”

  “Are you kidding?” Adrian Neumann asked then, frowning.

  “Not at all,” Isabelle replied sharply. His ingenuous face just made her angrier. “What’s that all about?” she barked.

  “But I thought . . .”

  “You thought what?” said Isabelle, exasperated. If she hurried, she might still arrive in time for the main course.

  “I thought you knew.”

  Isabelle rolled her eyes. “Look, the last thing I need now is to guess at riddles.”

  Adrian leaned back in his chair. In the most nonchalant tone he could muster, he said, “It’s quite simple. Our fathers have decided that we are to marry. Just like sealing a business deal. If you and I walk down the aisle in the next two years, your father will help my father out of his dire financial straits.” He sounded as if he were talking about the weather.

  Isabelle slumped back onto her chair like someone had knocked the wind out of her. “Say that again . . .”

  Isabelle listened to Adrian without moving a muscle. She would never have thought her father capable of selling her off like one of the products his factory churned out. “Tonight is a very special evening”—his words echoed loudly in her ears. It was only with effort that she fought back the tears lurking just beneath her eyelids. She took a sip of the lukewarm coffee in a daze. It tasted like a rotten lemon.

  “Now don’t go looking like I’ve done anything to you,” said Adrian. “I don’t feel any better about this than you do. Seriously. But my father desperately needs the money, or he would never have asked me to . . . do something like this. I have no idea what to do.”

  “Are you mad? Have you taken leave of your senses?” Isabelle glared at him wide-eyed. “I’m supposed to marry you just so that your father can get his hands on my father’s money? I don’t want to get married! Not to you, not to anybody else. And my father knows that. He has sold me out . . . and sold me!” Droplets of spittle landed on the table in front of her and she wiped them away in an unladylike gesture with the sleeve of her ruby-red silk evening dress.

  “Marriage is quite far down on my own list,” Adrian murmured. “I have so many other plans. And a very special dream right at the top . . .” His face assumed a faraway look, and for a moment Isabelle considered asking Adrian about his dream. But then she caught herself. What Adrian thought or did made no difference to her. She wanted freedom and adventure, and instead she was sitting in a trap, like a goldfish in a glass of water.

  As a gloomy silence settled over them, Isabelle sunk into her grim vision of the future, Adrian into his.

  Did her mother know about her father’s plan? Did she endorse it? She was still shocked by the news that her father had been scheming behind her back. At the same time, an unbridled fury was welling inside her. If her father thought he could sell her like a harem bride, he was going to be sorely disappointed. She would defend herself. The only question was how.

  “What if we . . .” she pursed her lips, musing. She hated it when her thoughts came galloping through her head like wild horses and she couldn’t rein them in.

  Adrian, who had ordered a glass of schnapps by then, threw back the drink in a single swig. The glass clacked as he set it down on the table. “Yes?”

  “What if we turn our fathers’ weapons back on them?” Isabelle’s chest was rising and falling as if she had been riding her bicycle too fast. She was so excited she could hardly breathe. A moment before, she had felt nothing but despair, but now she was suddenly confident that she had found a way out of the mess they were both in. She grasped Adrian’s right hand, which was cold from the schnapps glass, and said, “We could act as though we accept their plan. Admittedly, we would have to go out with each other a few times, but in Berlin one is more or less forced to cross paths from time to time.” She made a disparaging gesture. “And we would have to pretend that we didn’t dislike each other. They won’t expect any more than that, anyway. At some point, we’ll also have to plan our . . . engagement”—as she uttered the word, her face twisted as if she’d bitten her tongue—“to make it all look genuine so that my father is ready to help your father out of the bind he’s in. But if we play our roles well, it doesn’t have to go as far as a wedding, does it? We can string them along, and in the meantime we can each lead our lives as we like.”

  Adrian nodded, evidently considering the idea. “You mean we stall our fathers as long as we can, then just before the big day you suddenly lose your nerve or I come down with the measles. Or something else happens that stops us going through with it. Do you really think we could pull it off?” Skepticism was fighting a pitched battle with his desire to run with Isabelle’s idea, a battle that showed on his face.

  Isabelle smiled. “I’ll have a nervous breakdown on the church threshold if I must.”

  Adrian’s full lips widened into a grin. “If your performance just now is anything to judge by, I believe you’d actually do it! It’s certainly worth a shot. But we’ll have to arrange our next rendezvous here and now. The banks are breathing down my father’s neck, and he’ll be overjoyed if I go back to him with some positive news.”

  Isabelle shrugged. Whatever! All she cared about was putting one over on her father. “Just tell me when and where.”

  “I’ve heard from my sister, Irene, that you’re not averse to bicycling. How would you like to go to my cycling club together at the start of the new year? I only rarely had a chance to go cycling while I was in Munich, and I can hardly wait to get back on two wheels. You could watch while I train. Then it wouldn’t be a complete waste of time, at least.”

  He looked at time spent with her as wasted? Isabelle was about to get angry at his choice of words, but then the pleasure she felt at conning her father won out.

  “So I look on admiringly while you cycle around?” she said mockingly. “That would be just the sort of thing a good little future wife would do. Perfect for what we have in mind.”

  Half an hour later, they left the café arm in arm. Adrian Neumann led Isabelle to one of the bubbly bars and ordered a bottle of their finest French champagne.

  “To our deal!”

  Isabelle smiled at him. “To us!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tea and pastries? Or canapés and a glass of wine from the red goblets? Sophie Berg had spent the entire day puzzling over such questions. After all, it wasn’t every day that they had a doctor pay them a visit. And this doctor would be the successor to Dr. Fritsche, God rest his soul.

  “We have to establish a good relationship with the new doctor. We want his patients to buy their medicine from us, don’t we?” her husband, Anton, had cautioned her that morning. Typical of him. All he ever thought about was his pharmacy. Then he had added, “We should be thankful that they managed to find anyone at all prepared to take over the old practice. The people here in the district need a real doctor. That’s not something I can replace in the long run.”

  Most importantly, thought Sophie Berg as she admired her elegantly laid table, Anton is a pharmacist, not a doctor, and that won’t do for Clara in the long term. Clara was so delicate, so fragile . . . Sophie hated the fact that her daughter came in contact with sick peopl
e every day in the pharmacy. What if Clara came down with some terrible disease? She would not entrust her daughter to Anton’s medicine in such a case. Nothing could replace trained medical assistance. This was the real reason Sophie Berg felt a need to establish a good relationship with the new doctor.

  She was probably correct in deciding on tea and pastries. It was quite likely that the doctor belonged to the ever-growing group of teetotalers in Berlin who were against the consumption of alcohol in any form. Some of those men and women had gone so far as to picket the pharmacy for selling rubbing alcohol. The nerve! Sophie Berg, who was not opposed to an occasional glass of spirits, had watched them from upstairs, shaking her head.

  For the umpteenth time, she looked toward the grandfather clock that they had acquired, along with the house and pharmacy, from Anton’s parents. Sophie hated the huge, ugly piece of furniture, but she had to admit that it had not once broken down in all the years they’d had it. Three in the afternoon. Anton was planning to close the pharmacy at six that evening, and Dr. Fritsche’s successor had accepted their invitation for six-thirty. Sophie smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her gray outfit. Was it right for the occasion? Or should she put on her dark-blue, marine-style dress? And shouldn’t she at least put out a carafe of Advocaat? What did Clara think?

  “Clara? Clara!”

  When the doorbell rang at six-thirty, Clara leaped frantically to her feet to welcome their guest. Finally!

  Her mother had called her up from the pharmacy countless times that day to debate this or that question about the evening ahead. More important to Sophie than a shop full of customers was the question of which tablecloth looked prettier, the Plauen lace or her own hand-stitched one. With every interruption, Clara, too, had grown more anxious. Now, she only hoped that Fritsche’s successor would not stay too long. And that he wouldn’t regale them with hour-long monologues about his service in the Franco-German War. She was tired and her legs hurt from standing all day. Besides, she still had something important to do. She glanced eagerly at the paperwork that had come in the mail earlier and was now lying on the sideboard: the statutes of the University of Jena, the rules for admission, and additional information that might perhaps be important for her . . .

  Clara forced herself to smile and opened the door. The University of Jena was instantly forgotten.

  “You?”

  “They wanted to offer me the chief physician’s post in the Deaconess Hospital, but then I saw the announcement in the newspaper. ‘Successor Sought!’ ” Gerhard Gropius looked over the top of his teacup first at Clara’s parents, then at Clara herself. For a brief moment, their eyes met. A burning sensation shot through her and she quickly lowered her eyes. Oh, how well she remembered those brown eyes . . .

  “Chief physician?” Sophie Berg gasped in admiration. “You would give up such a career for our district?”

  Gerhard Gropius smiled ingratiatingly at his hostess. His lips were as full and perfectly formed as Clara remembered them.

  “I admit that it was not an easy decision to make.”

  Gropius was to take over from Dr. Fritsche? Clara’s thoughts whirled like leaves in an autumn wind.

  Anton Berg looked thoughtful. “As a tenured doctor in a hospital, you could organize your free time as you liked. As a local doctor with your own practice, your patients will determine the hours you work.” He laughed. “The people around here were always fetching old Fritsche out of bed in the middle of the night. My own dear wife did just that more than once, didn’t you, Sophie?”

  Clara gave her father a stony glance. Did he have to say that?

  “Only for the well-being of our daughter,” said her mother waspishly. When she turned back to their guest, her tone was once again as sweet as sugar. “I’m sure Dr. Gropius has the greatest compassion for that.”

  The young doctor reached across the table, took Sophie Berg’s hand, and squeezed it. “A mother’s true heart beats with concern for the ones she loves. Especially when it comes to such a charming young lady as your daughter.” He smiled at Clara, who nearly fainted.

  It had happened the previous summer. After her fall from the bicycle, she had been taken to the Deaconess Hospital. Her broken leg had been examined, then set in a plaster cast. She did not tell anyone that the accident involved a bicycle. She could live without all the accusations that particular revelation would involve. Even her mother still believed that she had suffered the break on the way to Isabelle’s house.

  Initially the pain had been intolerable. The doctors ordered absolute bed rest, then only light exercise for the next four weeks. After a week, she was bored half to death. So one mild, sweet-smelling summer evening after her parents had left she climbed out of bed and ventured out toward the hospital’s green courtyard. She did not make it as far as the garden, though, for at the end of the long, narrow corridor she discovered the hospital library. Curious, she peeked inside and saw the extensive book-lined shelves. The room was empty. First her eyes, then her fingers, wandered avidly across the spines of the books. The Relationship of Sensory and Motoric Perception to the Cerebral Surface in Human Beings, On the Convalescence of the Retina, and On the Causes of Pigment Migration in the Retina: Some Observations on Photographing the Fundus Oculis—the hospital’s library seemed to specialize in works devoted to ophthalmology. But wait, what was that? Textbook of Human Anatomy. Clara began leafing through the six-hundred-page tome, which was embellished with many colorful woodcuts. The book was heavy and bulky, but the illustrations of the human heart, liver, and lungs were extraordinarily enlightening.

  Even today, she did not know how it happened. From one moment to the next, her plastered leg gave way. She fell over backward, the book fell to the floor with a loud crack, and she blacked out.

  When she had come to, she did not immediately know where she was. Her leg . . . the library. She had fallen again, this time without a bicycle. She hoped she would be able to make it back to her room, though her injured leg had begun to hurt again. She was clumsily trying to get back to her feet when a man appeared in the doorway.

  “Oh my, what have you done to yourself?”

  Embarrassed, Clara had looked up to see a man with a slim face with full lips and brown eyes, the irises shining silver at their edges. He wore a white shirt beneath a white coat decorated with an emblem that showed him to be an assistant doctor. He looked to be in his midtwenties.

  She tried frantically to come up with an explanation as he felt her pulse. His hand was warm and soft and comforting. Then he ran his right hand down over the cast. Despite the plaster, Clara felt a gentle prickling in her leg.

  “Everything seems to be in order. Now tell me, young lady, what in the world are you doing in here?”

  “I . . . was feeling a little bored and I thought . . . The doctor who’s been treating me said I had to get some light exercise.”

  The doctor looked aghast. “My colleague had in mind light exercise while sitting in bed, not strolling around the hospital corridors alone with your leg wrapped in plaster! Too much movement for a delicate female body is never a good thing.”

  Clara looked down sheepishly. “I’m sorry.” She was mortified.

  The man tilted her head up and looked earnestly into her eyes. “And well you should be. The thought of a pretty young woman like you having to walk with a limp for the rest of her life because of such carelessness is unbearable to me.” Then, with an endearing smile, he reached out his hand to her. “I actually came in here because I wanted to use the peace and quiet of the library to research an interesting case, but that can wait until tomorrow. After all, I can’t allow you to be bored. So I will accompany you back to your room, arrange a cool glass of lemonade for us, and, if you will allow me, keep you company for a while.” With a smile that made Clara’s heart melt, he added, “My name is Gerhard Gropius.”

  “Clara Berg,” she breathed back, enraptured. What a handsome, charming man! Would this count as a kind of rendezvous? Isabelle and
Josephine would be floored when she told them about it.

  They were just leaving the library when she remembered the book that had fallen from her hand. She pointed at the floor and said, “Would you be so kind as to pick up that book? I’m afraid I was quite clumsy with it earlier.”

  “Textbook of Human Anatomy?” Gerhard Gropius looked at her in astonishment.

  “It’s very exciting, isn’t it? What do you think? Could I perhaps borrow it for a day or two?” She reached out for the book.

  But the doctor clutched it to his chest. With a frown and an irate look in his eyes, he said, “Miss Clara, please. That is not proper reading matter for a young lady, as God is my witness. The illustrations alone! Crucial for a doctor, to be sure, but for a young woman . . . You’d give yourself a shock!”

  Shortly after that, she walked down the corridor silently on the arm of the doctor. He had left as soon as they reached her room, making some flimsy excuse to go. There was no more talk of sharing a lemonade. For the rest of the evening she was afflicted by the pain in her leg, but even worse was the feeling that she had—somehow, inexplicably—let this attractive man down. He had been so courteous and kind, then suddenly, he’d grown cool and aloof, almost hostile. What had she done wrong? Frustrated and confused, she had finally fallen asleep.

  Gerhard Gropius . . . She dreamed of him not only that night but many others. For weeks afterward, she was consumed by his beautiful eyes and full lips. But she had not seen him in the hospital again. She told herself over and over that it was not meant to be. But it was poor consolation.

  And now . . . earlier, at the door, she had nearly had a stroke. Her heart had begun hammering so hard she could feel the pulsing in her throat. I think I’m going to faint, she thought, but didn’t. What kind of impression would that have made? She could tell that he had recognized her, too. A soft sigh escaped her.

  “The weeks since Dr. Fritsche’s death have been hard. The people have been coming directly to me for medical advice. Had my daughter not been there to help . . .” Anton Berg shrugged. “I don’t know how I would have managed the workload.”