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

by Petra Durst-Benning

The two young women threw their arms around each other.

  “I missed you so much . . .”

  “And I you.” Jo closed her eyes and nestled her cheek against Clara’s shoulder. The unaccustomed proximity of her friend moved her almost to tears. She swallowed heavily.

  “I live just two houses down now!” said Clara when they finally separated. She pointed to the building where an old couple had lived before. “The Wittgensteins passed away just after Gerhard and I married. My parents bought the place from their heirs. The apartment above the practice was really very small. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  Josephine looked from the house to Clara and nodded. Where’s Frieda? she wanted to ask, but Clara was already speaking again.

  “Of course, I knew from Frieda that you’d be coming today, but my heart nearly stopped when I saw you just now from the window. I ran down here, but you were already gone. I don’t have much time just now. Gerhard needs my help in the practice, and he doesn’t like it if I’m gone too long. And I have to go to the pharmacy later to pick up some medications that Gerhard needs. But I absolutely had to be the first to come and greet you!”

  Somewhat overwhelmed by Clara’s effusiveness, Josephine just nodded. She looked at her friend in admiration. “You look so lovely.”

  Clara’s rust-brown dress fitted as if it had been tailored to her body, and her hair was pinned up in a high and elegant knot. It gave an extra vulnerability to the finely chiseled lines of her face. Her skin was winter-pale but as clear as a baby’s.

  Clara laughed. “Marriage becomes me.” Then she screwed up her face. “But don’t expect me to return the compliment. Your hair’s in desperate need of a vinegar rinse. It’s as flat as straw! And your skin is chapped all over. I’ll bring you a cream from the pharmacy tomorrow.”

  Josephine laughed drily, as she retrieved her bag from the small shed. “I know. I look terrible. But a few weeks of Frieda’s care will work wonders, you’ll see. Where is she?” She looked inquiringly toward the house.

  “Frieda . . .” The smile vanished from her face. “I wanted to let you know, but . . .” As she spoke, she drew Josephine to a bench next to the house. She sat down and gestured for Josephine to sit beside her.

  But Jo stayed on her feet, fighting with all her might against a rising panic. “What is it? Is she sick? Is she in the hospital? What are you keeping from me?” She felt like taking Clara by the shoulders and shaking her. Her chest heaved as if she had been running.

  “Frieda passed away,” said Clara. Her voice was flat, and she looked at the ground as she said it. “She died the week before last, with no warning whatsoever. She spat blood. A lot of blood. It was like something inside her burst, a vein or an ulcer or something. It was horrible. Gerhard was up all night with her. He tried everything he could, believe me . . .”

  Josephine felt like she was drowning.

  “I’m so very sorry. I was going to write to you. I had the paper and a pen in my hand. But I couldn’t find the words. Oh, Josephine . . .” Clara wanted to take Josephine’s arm, but Jo pulled away, then slumped impotently onto the bench.

  Josephine took in everything around her with extreme clarity. The soft twittering of the blackbirds building a nest. Clara, sitting silently beside her. The gray cat, mewling around their legs . . . Every detail would be burned into her memory forever.

  “Frieda wrote to me just a few weeks ago. I’ve got her letter here,” Jo whispered. “She had plans . . .” Masterful plans.

  She looked around, distraught. What would become of this place? Who would harvest Frieda’s lamb’s lettuce? Who would look after her cat?

  “Frieda and her plans. She was really a very special old lady.” Clara smiled sadly. As if she could read Josephine’s thoughts, she said, “I’ve been feeding her cat ever since she died and taking care of the garden as well as I can. I can’t bear the thought that everything that was important to her might fall apart.” She managed a small shrug.

  I’d have done the same, Josephine wanted to say, but no words came out. Sadness washed through her like a poison, forcing its way into every pore and making it impossible for her to think straight. Why can’t I cry? she wondered and blinked.

  “Frieda talked about you all the time. She could hardly wait to see you again. She’d already set up a room for you weeks ago. It’s upstairs. She showed it to me. She was so proud of it. I haven’t got the slightest idea what’s to become of all this.” Clara’s eyes filled with tears.

  They sat together for a moment in silence, each mourning the old woman. Then Clara laid her hand gingerly on Josephine’s arm.

  “I’d love to invite you to stay with us, but . . .” She stopped and bit her lip. “Our life is dictated by our sick patients and their needs. Gerhard is often called out in the night and sometimes on weekends as well. A guest would have trouble getting used to our rhythm.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve got an address,” Josephine replied with forced lightness. As if to underscore her statement, she took the note with the address in Feuerland out of her bag. She had crumpled it up on the way there, not imagining that she would ever need it. “Where is Frieda now?”

  “She was laid to rest in the churchyard near Belle-Alliance Square. Everyone on the street went to the funeral. Her grave is beneath a big chestnut tree, right out on the edge. It’s easy to find.”

  Josephine stood up with the tired motions of an old woman. “I’ll be going now, then. I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” she said without really believing it. What was left for her here? Frieda was dead, her parents didn’t want anything to do with her, Clara and her husband were busy. And Isabelle had forgotten her long ago.

  Josephine already had her bag on her shoulder when she asked, “How is Isabelle, by the way?”

  Clara opened her mouth to reply but then seemed to change her mind. “Isabelle,” she finally said. “We’ve lost touch. She always has so much to do and is constantly racing off to one place or another, so it was terribly difficult to stay in contact with her. And when it comes down to it, we move in different social circles anyway. I read something about her and her fiancé in the paper occasionally, but that’s all.”

  “She isn’t married yet?” Jo asked, her voice scratchy.

  Clara shook her head. “That would certainly have been mentioned in the paper. They write about everything else she does. Parties that Isabelle attends, painting exhibitions she ‘graces with her presence.’ The Herrenhus family has become très à la mode.” Clara’s voice had taken on a sarcastic undertone. “The newspaper also has stories about the cycling club Isabelle founded! A cycling club for women, can you imagine that?” She made a disapproving face.

  “Isabelle did what? When? Where?” Josephine dropped her bag. She had to hear more.

  Clara waved it off. “She set it up together with her old schoolmate Irene about three years ago. And you know she couldn’t stand Irene—remember how Isabelle was always sniping about how arrogant she was? But now that she’s engaged to Irene’s brother, the shoe’s on the other foot. Moving in better circles always meant a great deal to Isabelle. I guess she’s decided she can put up with a bit of arrogance after all.”

  Josephine heard the arch tone in Clara’s voice very clearly. She couldn’t care less which parties Isabelle visited and with whom. She did, however, want to hear more about the cycling club.

  “Her club . . . Do you know where it is?”

  So Isabelle had established a cycling club for women . . . That had always been her dream! She could remember exactly when she told Frieda about her idea. The old woman had replied, “Then do it!” as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

  A little sullenly, Clara told her where the club was located. “I must say, it’s very nice inside. But if you ask me, I find the whole idea a little childish. Riding bicycles was really just a youthful lark. But we’re adults now. You’d think Isabelle would be more sensible. Gerhard says it’s scandalous that grown women would sit on the sadd
le of a bicycle. If you heard him speak about it, you’d feel quite ill! It turns out riding a bicycle is quite dangerous. If I’d known that back then, I would never have dared to climb aboard one. And Gerhard knows. He’s a good doctor, after all. The best there is, if you ask me. Gerhard says . . .”

  Without another word, Josephine picked up her bag and walked away.

  Frieda Koslowski. Born March 1830. Died March 1895. She was sixty-five years old. Why couldn’t she have lived longer?

  Sadly, Josephine brushed yellow pollen from the unadorned wooden cross. It felt strange that nobody had ever addressed Frieda as Mrs. Koslowski. She always had been just Frieda. Frieda who drank red wine instead of beer and who read the newspaper every day. Frieda, on whose kitchen wall hung no calendar of devout sayings but a map of the world. And who kept Meyer’s World Atlas on the table beneath it. Frieda, who tended to her hobbies the way others tended to their homing pigeons. Frieda, who named her cat Mousie.

  In summer, she always had a glass of buttermilk for the children who lived on the street. She kept the bottle cool in a bucket of water that stood underneath her garden table. In winter, she made caramels, and anyone who stopped by her house was allowed to sample the delicious treats. She was there for Jo when she needed to cry her eyes out and there to celebrate with her when that was called for. Nothing like Jo’s parents, whose staid and sober lives left no room for such “follies.” Frieda loved follies. And she loved the people behind them.

  Suddenly, it was all too much for Josephine. She sank onto the cold earth beside Frieda’s grave.

  She had not wept when her brother died. She had wanted to die, to be as dead as Felix, certainly. But she had not shed a single tear. There had been many times when it would have been reasonable to weep—at the thought of the damage she had done to the Rover, during the most difficult times in prison—but she didn’t let anyone see her cry.

  Now her eyes burned. Her throat tightened like a cord was wrapped around it, and the muscles in her back grew cramped and painful. One teardrop rolled from the corner of her eye, then another. It was a strange and not unpleasant feeling. More and more tears trickled down and gathered at the corners of her mouth. Salty, almost resinous. A wave of feeling washed over her, and, for the first time in her adult life, she gave free rein to her tears.

  Josephine could not have said how long she sat there. The sun receded behind a thin layer of clouds; the ground beneath her was cold, last year’s grass brittle and hard. But Josephine was so exhausted from crying that she could not imagine ever standing up again.

  Her old life was over. With Frieda’s death, the last bridge to her past had collapsed.

  She stroked the cross with one strangely calm hand.

  Now she would never find out what plans Frieda had had in mind for her.

  But as her hand lay on the rough-planed wood, she felt a new power begin to flow inside her.

  Thinking about all she had lost was pointless. She was free! She had paid for her actions, and she would pay off her financial debt as well. She was a twenty-one-year-old woman who had been given a second chance. A second life. A new life. One in which everything was possible. She would have to forge her own plans instead of relying on others’ plans for her. She did not have to acquiesce to anything. She herself would set the course.

  Of course, it would be more difficult now that Frieda was gone. She would have to take the job in the shoe factory and sleep there as well. She would have to pay for her accommodation, and she had no doubt that the factory owner charged handsomely for his “charity”!

  But it would only be a temporary measure. Nothing and nobody would stop her from fulfilling her dreams. She would simply have to do it without Frieda’s help. But she still had Frieda’s blessing! Her old friend had always believed in her. Now it was up to her, Josephine, to prove herself worthy of that belief.

  Jo stood.

  “I’m still alive!” she murmured to herself, but her voice was steady.

  When, and where, had she said that before?

  Chapter Eighteen

  When all her tears had dried, Josephine set off toward Feuerland. Jo didn’t have enough money for a second tram journey, but the air was still pleasantly mild and the long walk would do her good. She eagerly breathed in the various aromas of the city. The smoke rising from a chimney. The smell of frying sausages, roasted almonds, and smoked fish emanating from the roadside stands. The brackish odor of the Spree slapping weed-green at its dirty banks. The musty reek rising from poorly laid drains. Berlin. Her city. Her old home, her new home.

  Josephine discovered with pleasure that, thanks to her cycle tours of the city, she still had a very good sense of Berlin’s layout, despite the building work going on all around. She took a shortcut here, a particularly lovely detour there, and occasionally simply followed the tram route on foot. She estimated she would reach the shoe factory in about two hours and be able to move into her new lodgings before evening. With a little luck she would start her new job the next day—and start earning some money of her own.

  As she walked, she began to see cyclists everywhere. Young men in tight cycling pants. Older gentlemen holding the handlebars with one hand and their top hat with the other. Men quickly weaving among the horses and carriages. And others who seemed to have all the time in the world pedaling along sedately. Josephine was amazed. Before she had gone to prison, cyclists had been something special. But now they were simply part of the traffic on the streets, along with the trams, carriages, handcarts, and pedestrians. How was that possible? Only rich men like Moritz Herrenhus had been able to afford a bicycle before. Had they become more affordable in just three years? If that were the case, she might be able to buy a bicycle of her own in the foreseeable future. Her own bicycle . . . It was her greatest dream. The thought alone was enough to energize her, and she walked faster. The only thing that dampened her enthusiasm was the fact that every cycler she saw was a man.

  In her mind’s eye, she suddenly saw herself as a younger woman wearing her father’s clothes and riding through Berlin. Ever watchful, always taking care not to be recognized. Had nothing improved in that regard? Were women still harassed the way they had been in the past?

  Arriving at Pariser Platz, Josephine was so hungry that she decided to spend the last of her money at a sausage stand. She was about to take her first delicious bite when a poster hanging from a tree caught her eye. It showed a smiling young woman in a skirt and billowing blouse riding a bicycle. A white scarf swept out behind her in the slipstream. Beneath the stylized illustration was an inscription:

  THE FIRST BERLIN CYCLING CLUB FOR WOMEN

  INVITES ALL RESIDENTS OF BERLIN

  TO THE

  GREAT TRACK RACE FOR WOMEN

  Beneath that, in smaller letters, was information about the date and venue. The race would take place in just under two weeks.

  Josephine felt her skin prickle and the hair on her arms rise. The cycling club for women really existed! And it was advertising a race. Unbelievable.

  That had to be the club that Clara had mentioned to her earlier, the one that Isabelle had founded. How stunning that Josephine should see this poster, here, now . . . She shook her head. What a stroke of fate.

  Her hunger was forgotten, and she stuffed the bread and sausage heedlessly into her bag. Then she looked around. No one was looking at her, so she untied the poster from the tree, folded it up, and put it in her bag, too.

  “Bed number seven is still free,” said the gaunt clerk at the Strähle Shoe Sole Factory. “We provide bedding, if required. Rental is fifty pfennigs a month. If you want to have it washed, it’s another fifty pfennigs. The wash service is not provided more than once a month, however. Do you require bedding?”

  Jo nodded, and the woman made a note on her blotter.

  Josephine looked around with a feeling of dread. The dormitory, situated beneath the factory roof, was barely distinguishable from the one she had just left at the prison. It even smelled like t
he one in Barnim Road. Of unwashed bodies. Of mold. Of badly dried laundry, resignation, and weariness.

  Jo sat on the bed, testing it. The mattress was so thin and worn that she could feel the boards underneath. Out of the frying pan into the fire—no saying was more fitting. Jo smiled involuntarily, and the clerk looked at her with skepticism.

  “This is our common kitchen,” said the woman, leading her into a second room that was considerably smaller than the first. “Who uses it and when is something the tenants sort out for themselves. The monthly charge to use it is one mark, which includes the cost of the wood for the oven. You have to bring in water yourself from the yard. Like the fee for the bedding and laundry, the charge for the kitchen will be deducted from your wages.”

  An ancient, soot-blackened stove dominated the center of the room. Next to it was a sink, also antiquated; it was chipped but more or less clean. The wall on the other side of the stove was taken up by a wooden cupboard divided into many small compartments. Each compartment was covered by a wire grille, which reminded Josephine of a chicken coop. She let out a quiet sigh.

  With her fingers held as if she was about to pick up something unpleasant, the clerk indicated the cupboard. “The compartments are numbered. There is one for each bed. Our tenants can use the compartments to store food. It is absolutely forbidden to keep food in the dormitory! Anyone caught doing so can pack her bag on the spot.”

  Josephine frowned. “But the compartments are so small. You couldn’t even fit a loaf of bread in there. And there’s no padlock that I can see. It’s practically an invitation to a thief.” A decent piece of sausage or a jar of marmalade wouldn’t last long in there if it weren’t locked up.

  “This is not the Grand Hotel,” the clerk replied sharply. “If you can’t live with it, you can leave anytime. There are more than enough young women who would be thankful to have such a secure and clean place to sleep. And you’ll have to look long and hard to find as good a position as you’ll have in Mr. Strähle’s factory.”