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

by Petra Durst-Benning

  Josephine turned away in disgust. These people were just here for the spectacle! The well-being of the cyclists meant as little to them as the race itself. What they wanted to see was naked skin and hair-raising accidents.

  The crack of the starter’s gun roused Josephine from her dour thoughts. Instantly, a dozen women on the opposite straight began to move. All wore elegantly designed but practical cycling outfits comprised of tight-fitting tops and loosely cut bloomers that did not restrict their movements. One or two were wearing hats, but most had braided their hair and pinned up the braids to stop them from flapping in their faces as they rode.

  Jo’s eyes followed the field of riders with fascination. After just half a lap, Isabelle and a second woman had pulled away from the others. Cheered on by the crowd, Isabelle leaned even lower over the handlebars, and her bicycle seemed to fly even more quickly along the track. And how sharply she took the curves! How must it feel to ride on such a fast track? The hunger in Jo’s belly grew stronger, but it was not a hunger for food. It was so all-consuming that she could not hold out against it for long. She abruptly turned away from the race and wandered back out of the crowd. A group of young men stood close to the entryway to the track. They were all were dressed in cycling outfits, so Jo assumed they were members of the men’s club. They evidently had no interest in the race going on out on the track, because instead of watching, they appeared to be in the middle of a heated discussion. Josephine edged closer to the group as inconspicuously as she could.

  “I’m not backing down—if you’re not able to average fifteen miles per hour in a road race, you’ve got no business even competing!” one of the young men said adamantly.

  “Fifteen? Strong words. How many races are you basing that on? Are you taking into account all the races that take place in England, France, and Germany in a year?” asked another of the men.

  Josephine started. Wasn’t that the blond fellow who’d taken her for a servant girl the first time she’d visited?

  Although she’d done her utmost to appear confident that time at the club, she’d been shaking like a leaf. Everything was so new and strange, and when Isabelle’s clubmate Irene had attacked her verbally like that . . . she had almost gotten up and run out. But hadn’t she vowed to never again let herself be intimidated? Not by anything, not by anyone. And definitely not by blond men, although she had to admit that this one had a special radiance.

  She was trying to inch a little closer when he looked over at her. For a brief moment, their eyes met. Josephine suddenly flushed, as if caught red-handed in some mischief. The man grinned broadly. Jo quickly averted her gaze and pretended to be looking for something in her bag. The young man returned his attention to the men’s discussion.

  “Fifteen miles per hour? That’s ancient history,” said one of the men loftily. “I was clocking nearly twenty in Land’s End last autumn.”

  “With two pacesetters, boyo! You never would have done it without ’em,” the blond replied, patting the showboat teasingly on the shoulder.

  The men laughed, and the one who’d been bragging fell into an insulted silence.

  Josephine did her best to follow their discussion from where she stood leaning against an ash tree a short distance away. She did not understand every word, but she was well aware that speed records were being tossed around like leaves in an autumn wind. As they debated the question of who was the fastest, where and under what conditions, the conversation turned to the criteria for measuring the speed of races.

  Even if Jo had been standing directly beside the men, she would have understood no more than half of what they were saying. Was winning really all that mattered? Why didn’t anyone talk about the sheer pleasure of cycling?

  After the race, Isabelle received the congratulations of her friends and competitors alike with the grace of a queen, while Moritz Herrenhus stood beside her, puffed up with pride. Second place went to Irene, the same Irene who had been so scathing to Jo just days earlier. She stood with her own family just a few steps away from Isabelle. Members of one of the families occasionally wandered across to the other group to exchange a few words. They all seemed to know each other well.

  Isabelle’s father had hardly changed. Perhaps the lines of his chin are a touch more aggressive, thought Jo, standing some distance away. She wondered why she had never before noticed the unpleasant way he sized up the people around him with his eyes. His wife looked just as she always had—beautiful, bored, and somehow irrelevant—as she stood there swinging a champagne glass in the air. Damn it all, thought Jo. It had simply never occurred to her that she would run into Isabelle’s parents here. If there was one thing she could live without right now, it was an encounter with the man who had put her behind bars.

  Josephine had already turned to go when someone called her name. Isabelle came up to her, quite out of breath, pushing her bicycle. “Are you leaving already? Out of the question! You must meet some friends of mine! And you’re coming to my victory party, too.” She had already hooked her arm in Josephine’s. “Don’t worry. My parents won’t say a word,” she whispered, not letting down her victory smile for a second. Arriving back at her circle of friends, she pushed Josephine forward.

  “I’d like you all to meet Josephine Schmied, an exceptionally experienced cyclist! She would very much like to join our club. Mother, Father—you and Jo are already acquainted.”

  Moritz Herrenhus nodded icily, and his wife did not move a muscle. The others in the group murmured a brief greeting.

  Isabelle took a step toward the second group, still gathered around Irene, and tugged briefly at the sleeve of a young man.

  “And this is Adrian Neumann, my fiancé.”

  “This is your fiancé?” The words escaped Josephine before she could stop herself. She took a step back as if someone had struck her in the belly.

  The blond young man reached out his right hand toward her and said, “Delighted to meet you. Isabelle has told me a lot about you.”

  Josephine could not reply. Her hand trembled, and after a fleeting handshake, she jerked it back as if she’d received an electric shock.

  Why him?

  Isabelle frowned, then said, “Would you like to take a turn on my bicycle? You could ride it over to the storage room for me.” She held her Rover out for Jo to take.

  Josephine shook her head, mumbling that she wasn’t properly dressed.

  Isabelle frowned a second time, then pushed her bicycle into Adrian’s hands. “If you would be so kind . . . We’re all heading off to the party. Cycling makes you terribly hungry, don’t you think?” she said to the group gathered around her. “And that one glass of champagne certainly hasn’t taken the edge off my thirst, either.” Laughing and joking, the group made their way into the club restaurant. Josephine trotted along behind them.

  Confident that his daughter would win, Moritz Herrenhus had reserved the entire club restaurant. The family’s guests, friends, and business partners sat down to enjoy a victory dinner at eight tables covered with white damask tablecloths and laid with fine silver.

  Josephine had been directed to a seat at a table close to the door. When Moritz Herrenhus was finished with his obligatory speech and before the soup was served, she and the other guests at the table introduced themselves. On Josephine’s right sat a journalist who worked for one of Berlin’s largest daily newspapers and was apparently one of the few newspapermen actually well disposed toward women’s cycling. In his view, female cyclists presented a particularly graceful sight, and if it were up to him, far more women would take up the sport. He ventured as much in a loud voice, and his comments earned a poisonous look from his stick-thin wife sitting beside him. Their daughter, who had taken part in the race but was one of the last to cross the finish line, hunched morosely between her parents. Opposite Josephine sat Moritz Herrenhus’s dentist and his wife, as well as an engineer who had some convoluted connection to Herrenhus’s factory. At the far end of the table sat one of the young cyclists
whose conversation Josephine had eavesdropped on earlier. He was a friend of Adrian’s, but Josephine was not sure what he did for a living. Perhaps he was a professional son, in the same way that Isabelle was a professional daughter?

  When it was her turn, she introduced herself simply as Isabelle’s friend. Her voice shook slightly, but she was spared any need to give more details because they began to serve the soup just then.

  For some time, the only sound was the soft clattering of spoons and bowls, but the other guests gradually struck up conversations around her. Jo listened mostly in silence. What was she supposed to say? She could contribute nothing to a discussion about the purchase of a new country house close to Potsdam, nor could she add anything to a conversation about the challenges of employing a new chauffeur. And never in her life had she adopted such a whining tone of voice as that of the journalist’s daughter as she tried to convince her father that he simply must buy her a new bicycle. The soup bowls were just being taken away when the journalist finally caved. “For God’s sake, then we’ll buy you a new bicycle!”

  The young woman looked at the others around the table triumphantly.

  “Admittedly, the women’s race today was a real public drawcard. But it’s only the sprints and long-distance races that catch the imagination of the wider public,” said the young cyclist at the end of the table, waving his fork wildly in the air as if to underscore his statement.

  “I’m with you on that,” said the journalist. “But isn’t it also worrying that a certain, what? . . . gigantism? . . . is taking over the sport? When I think of the long-distance races, well, it’s unbelievable, to think about the amount of sheer donkeywork involved.”

  “But where’s the problem with that?” the engineer replied. “Human beings have always tried to test their boundaries. And technological advancements help a man do just that. And thank God! Where would civilization be if we didn’t constantly strive to get ahead? Without a certain—let’s call it peaceful megalomania—the Eiffel Tower would never have been built. Without faith in technology, there would be no passenger steamers carrying us to New York in days instead of weeks or months. Without the pioneering spirit of progress and technology, we might all still be sitting in trees and eating leaves!”

  “We certainly do have good grounds to be grateful for progress. Without it, we wouldn’t be enjoying this delicious roast veal,” said Josephine, which drew a laugh from the other guests at the table. Happy to have made at least one small contribution to the conversation, Josephine turned her attention back to her dinner. She had never eaten anything so delicious in her life. She enthusiastically helped herself to a third thick slice from the serving platter.

  “I must say, I’m not used to seeing a young woman with such an appetite,” said the cyclist, raising his eyebrows at her. “Most of them pick at their food like sparrows, afraid for their waistlines.” As he spoke, his eyes wandered suggestively over Josephine’s body.

  She gave him a frosty smile. “I don’t have an appetite. It’s called hunger. You’d know what it was yourself if you hadn’t yet eaten anything today.”

  The guests laughed again, assuming Josephine’s words were meant in jest.

  If you only knew, she thought. Although she had just plonked another potato dumpling on her plate, her throat suddenly clenched and her hunger dissipated. Though she did her best to come across as plucky and not let herself be intimidated by all the talk of wealth, this was not her world. More than the width of a table separated her from these people, she thought. Without waiting for the “Dessert Surprise,” she put her napkin beside her plate and murmured a farewell.

  The tool room at the club was stuffy and smelled of rubber, talcum powder, oil, and dirty old rags. Adrian rummaged through the tool cupboard with both hands, looking for the right tools to dismantle the front fork of his bicycle. Surrounded by various wrenches, pliers, the pots of bearing grease . . . his mood was improving by the second. He was in his element!

  A little while later, he carried his toolbox out to the covered area in front of the bicycle garage, where he had already set up his machine. He pulled off his jacket and threw it over the railing, spread an old blanket on the ground to protect his pants, and set to work. But his good spirits suddenly vanished.

  Why couldn’t he love Isabelle?

  He began digging roughly through his tools. Damn it, if he was going to be plagued by such thoughts now, he might as well have stayed at the party. Both Isabelle’s parents and his own had greeted his sudden departure with indignantly raised eyebrows. No doubt he’d be subjected to another lecture afterward. A lecture, as if he were a fourteen-year-old boy! But who cares? he thought defiantly. For the time being, he just wanted to enjoy some peace.

  He was fed up with all of it. The same old prattling from the same old prattlers. He’d needed a little fresh air in his lungs, so he had ridden a few laps of the now empty track alone. He felt better after that and decided to spend the rest of his Sunday afternoon fixing up his bicycle. He had received a parcel from a specialized equipment firm the day before, and inside it was the new front fork he had been craving for so long. The manufacturer’s catalog had called it “a technological wonder”—and he could hardly wait to see for himself whether it lived up to that grandiose claim.

  Adrian set the adjustable wrench on the top of the fork to loosen the counter-tensioned nuts that held the fork in place.

  Isabelle was a great girl. She was attractive—assuming you liked redheads. She had style, intelligence, and a dry sense of humor. She was sharp, too, and extremely popular in the circles in which she moved. And she was a good match, socially speaking, to boot. On top of all that, she was pleasantly uncomplicated—a characteristic that he had never expected to find in such a spoiled young woman. So why on earth couldn’t he love her? It would have made everything so much easier! He and Isabelle would have long been married by now and his father would finally leave him in peace. Instead, he’d been brooding for ages about how to extricate himself from the whole mess.

  The contracts that Moritz Herrenhus had presented to his father—which involved enormous sums—were full of legal twists. Isabelle’s father could demand the return of large portions with the wag of a finger if he and Isabelle . . .

  “Stop! What are you doing?” a woman’s voice called out behind him. Adrian turned around and saw Isabelle’s friend standing behind him. “You’ll never be able to loosen the bottom nut with an adjustable wrench! You need a cone wrench, or you run the risk of damaging the fork itself—” The young woman abruptly fell silent and looked at him aghast. “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to speak so out of turn, but the women in the club said it was all very informal here . . .” She kneeled beside him and pushed her blue skirt under her knees without a fuss. Then she dug around in the toolbox he had assembled. With practiced ease, she set a flat wrench on the lower nut. Then she eased the fork downward and out of its mount and set it aside, catching the ball bearings that dropped out after it skillfully in her other hand.

  Adrian could only look on, astounded. All thoughts of Isabelle and the fateful situation he was in had vanished.

  The young woman smiled and pressed the bearings into his hand. “So . . . what do we do now?”

  “Now we put the new one on,” said Adrian and laughed.

  For the next few minutes, he obediently handed Josephine the tools she asked for, while she focused on reassembling his bicycle. First, using the bearing grease, she positioned the little balls correctly and slid the new fork into place. Then she assessed and adjusted the tightness of the bearings. Finally, she counter-tensioned the nuts again to stop them from loosening. “Done!”

  Adrian was amazed. She was so focused when she worked! And so sure of herself! It would have taken him at least twice as long to attach the new fork.

  “Where did you learn all that?” he asked.

  Josephine shrugged. “I had three years of lessons from one of the best mechanics in Berlin.”

  “Y
ou? A woman?”

  “Anything wrong with that?” she asked, looking at him intently, her eyes sparkling.

  Adrian raised his hands defensively. “Not at all! But you’d have to admit that this kind of knowledge is pretty unusual for a woman. What did your parents have to say about your taking up this profession?” Hadn’t Isabelle said something about Josephine working in a factory?

  “My parents?” Josephine rubbed pensively at her right earlobe. “My father is a smith, and he was firmly convinced I’d slave away beside him at the forge my whole life. Without pay, mind you. He could never accept that I had other interests. I’m a great disappointment to them, so there’s been a wedge between us for years.” She looked at Adrian defiantly. “Now I live my own life, with rules I’ve set for myself. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it.” Then she took a rag and began to polish Adrian’s bicycle.

  “And then?” he asked, somewhat breathless. Why didn’t she put down the stupid rag and keep talking?

  “What then?”

  “Well . . .” He waved his right hand helplessly in the air. He had so many questions going through his mind simultaneously that he didn’t know which one to ask first.

  “I find it admirable that you’ve freed yourself so completely from the pressures of your family,” he said stiffly. I’d love to do that myself, he added to himself.

  Josephine dropped her right hand to her knee. Her eyes darkened slightly, and she looked thoughtful. “I didn’t go looking for it. Life is just the way it is. There’s no reason to admire me for anything.”

  Adrian looked at Isabelle’s friend. There was nothing affected about her words, nothing contrived, nothing forced, as he was so used to hearing from the young women in his world. As he had heard so often from Isabelle herself, who loved to be the center of attention. And from his sister, Irene, who was constantly trying to impress everyone with her cleverness.

  As Jo returned to polishing the bicycle, she began speaking again. “It would be foolish to keep crying about the past and things that shouldn’t have turned out the way they did. Instead, I’m trying to turn my plans into reality. But first, I have to find a good job as a mechanic. Right now, I’m working in a shoe-sole factory, which is far from pleasant.” She screwed up her face at the thought.