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

by Petra Durst-Benning

  “I can imagine,” he said and smiled. “If I can be of any help . . .” “It would be foolish to keep crying about the past and things that shouldn’t have turned out the way they did.” Josephine’s words had hit the nail on the head. In his life, too, there were so many things that shouldn’t have turned out as they had . . .

  “Thank you, but I can do it on my own,” Josephine said, waving off his offer. “As soon as I’ve got a decent job and I’m earning good money, I’m going to buy a bicycle. Then I’ll be able to ride whenever I feel like it.” Josephine stopped polishing and put the rag aside. “You’ve got a lovely bicycle here. The new fork has a rather peculiar profile. I assume it will make the bicycle more immune to bumps.” She ran her hand over the new part with interest.

  Adrian looked first at Josephine, then at his bicycle. “Have you learned the text in the catalog by heart?”

  “What do you mean? It’s obvious what it’s for.”

  He held out his bicycle to her. “If that’s the case, then I’d be happy to have you put the new fork through its paces. Go on, ride a lap!”

  Josephine shook her head. “That’s awfully nice of you, but no, thank you. I’ve sworn to myself never again to sit on a bicycle that doesn’t belong to me.”

  Adrian narrowed his eyes, confused. This conversation was getting more and more bizarre. “Why, if I may ask? I thought riding a bicycle was your greatest passion?”

  “That’s true. Even so, it’s one of the rules I’ve set for myself in my new life.”

  “But . . . aren’t you making your life unnecessarily difficult like that? I mean, earlier you turned down Isabelle’s offer to ride, and now mine, too.” Josephine grew more mysterious—and more intriguing—with every word she uttered.

  “Following your own set of rules . . . I’d love to do that,” he murmured to himself, hardly aware that he was speaking aloud. So he was startled when Josephine said, “Then why don’t you?”

  Adrian laughed dejectedly. Then he told her about how he was the only son in his family—the heir!—who was supposed to lead his father’s empire in the future. “Elektronische Werke Berlin is growing all the time. Berlin and the whole region are flourishing. Industry needs more and more power, more and more electricity, and we’re leading the market.”

  “But?” Josephine asked. And in that one word, Adrian heard more understanding, more perception than he had ever heard from anyone in his life.

  “But it isn’t what I want!” he suddenly burst out. “Cycling is my great passion, too. At least, I look at a bicycle differently than the men and women in there do.” He waved his hand vaguely toward the clubhouse. “If you ask me, it’s far too brilliant an invention to be merely a toy for the rich or a sport machine for people who want to prove themselves physically.” He snorted disparagingly.

  “Go on,” said Josephine.

  “I see it like this. Two things have to happen. First, people need to understand that a bicycle is the best, cheapest, and simplest means of transport in the world. And second—” He paused uncertainly, but when he saw how mesmerized Jo appeared to be, how she hung on his every word, he went on. “Second, we have to find a way to produce bicycles more cheaply. They need to be within reach of the common people.” He spontaneously reached out and took hold of Josephine’s hand. “Picture the freedom that the bicycle would bring to workers slaving away all day long in loud, stinking factories! Or to maids wearing out their fingers scrubbing sheets on a washboard. Haven’t those hardworking people truly earned the right to go enjoy the fresh air after a hard day’s work?” Adrian breathed in deeply. Then he looked in surprise at her hand, which he still held in his. What was he doing? Here he was, sitting hand in hand with this young woman, a total stranger, telling her things he had only ever told those closest to him. He felt himself reddening, and he let go of her hand.

  “But Adrian!” Josephine said. It was the first time she had called him by name. “How can you even say such things? If everyone could ride a bicycle, it would completely spoil all your clubmates’ fun!”

  It took him a moment to realize that she was being sarcastic.

  Then they both laughed and meant it.

  “You forgot about women,” said Josephine, when they had settled down again. She leaned closer to him and said, “Bicycles would not only be good for factory workers but also for housewives lugging bread, butter, and flour home from the grocer in heavy baskets. It would be so much easier to carry it all on a bicycle!”

  Adrian nodded vehemently. He looked into her radiant eyes and knew that they reflected the gleam in his own. “I’ve already thought about that. We’d have to build a very robust bicycle, with large baskets on either side to transport things in. A kind of steel mule.”

  They laughed again.

  Adrian felt better than he had in a very long time.

  “I think you have wonderful ideas,” said Josephine, her voice filled with admiration. “Why don’t you just go to your father and tell him about them? As a businessman, he would have to see the opportunities in what you’ve just been talking about. He could support and guide you as you got started.” Her face had taken on a dreamy expression, but there was something very determined in it, as well. Adrian could hardly get enough of it. Just as he couldn’t get enough of her words . . .

  “Maybe you’ll start manufacturing those cheap bicycles yourself? I’ll be your first customer, that’s a promise!” Josephine smiled and held out her right hand, and Adrian shook it firmly, as if they had just struck a deal.

  It was after four when they parted. No doubt they would bump into each other again at the club, said Adrian, obviously convinced that nothing would stand in the way of Josephine’s becoming a member.

  Josephine’s heart was aflutter as she marched briskly back toward Feuerland. Her conversation with Adrian had churned her up inside. What a man he was! To have such vision! And the way he thought about the lives of other people. What would make the son of an important industrialist even begin to think about factory workers and maids? Josephine promised herself she would ask him that the next time they met.

  The bicycle as a means of transport for everyone . . . How revolutionary! Her own plans seemed trivial and inane by comparison. But perhaps one had to be as wealthy and carefree as Adrian to be able to have such high-flying ideas. All of her experience had shown her only that life was an eternal struggle and that one had to take it by the horns every day, like a belligerent steer. Pride would bring you crashing down fast—that, too, was something she’d learned from experience.

  What a day! The women’s race. The encounter with Isabelle’s parents. Adrian . . .

  It was strange. He had not uttered a single word about Isabelle. Now that she thought about it, why hadn’t he been inside with her and her guests? What could that mean?

  She had been out all day, but she did not feel the least bit tired. The thought of the unwelcoming dormitory and the grim common kitchen suddenly seemed unbearable. What was she supposed to do there? Lie down and sleep? Impossible. Listen to the others fighting? Intolerable.

  She could return to the dormitory just before bedtime, she decided. At the moment, she had to find someone to talk to about all her swirling emotions. And she knew exactly who that would be. Paying Clara a visit would mean killing two birds with one stone: Jo could tell Clara all about her exciting day, and she could admire Clara’s new home in the process.

  She turned around with a spring in her step.

  After a good hour’s march, she arrived, worn out, thirsty, and with aching feet at Clara’s door. A cup of tea and a baked treat would be just the thing, she thought as she pressed the doorbell. After waiting a minute, she pressed it again. Nothing. Josephine frowned and looked up at the windows. There was a light burning up there, so why was no one answering? After another minute of shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she walked away, disappointed.

  Clara watched sadly as her friend walked away down the street. For a moment, she had
almost given in, run down the stairs, and flung open the door. But it was better this way. If Gerhard came home and found a visitor—and Josephine, of all people!—it would only make him angrier.

  Clara tugged the white bedroom curtains straight, then she sat on the edge of the bed with her shoulders slumped. Everything had been fine that morning. She and Gerhard had enjoyed their breakfast and speculated about when the first patient would call to disturb the Sunday peace. Then Gerhard had seen Isabelle’s invitation to the cycle race on the console table. Was she planning to go? Secretly? Without him? Without his consent? Despite knowing that he deeply disapproved of such . . . filth?

  She had laughed and taken the invitation out of his hand, intending to throw it away. Why didn’t I already get rid of it? she wondered. It had been a simple oversight. Gerhard was right when he said that she was too forgetful.

  With the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, she rubbed her right wrist, now blue from where he had grabbed her so tightly that she had cried out. He had snatched the invitation out of her hand, torn it into a thousand tiny pieces, and thrown them on the floor. And then . . . Clara closed her eyes. It was best not to think about it. She was sure he was sorry.

  “So you see what I think of this nonsense!” he had practically spat at her. He had left the house without another word and had not yet returned.

  Where was he? Would he be hungry when he came home? Or had he gone somewhere to eat without her? Uncertain whether she ought to cook something special for him, Clara went over to their medicine cabinet to fetch a cooling ointment for her wrist.

  The compartment above the household medications caught her eye. Almost tenderly, she ran her fingers over the pile of books she had stuffed in there.

  Handbook of Modern Pharmacology, Toxic Diseases of the Skin and Their Treatment, Sepsis—it had been a long time since she had so much as glanced inside one of those books.

  She rubbed the ointment into her damaged wrist. Then she dabbed a little on the red area on her right cheek as well.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In early May, two things happened that turned Josephine’s life upside down from one day to the next.

  One day, when she had finished her shift, weary in mind and body, she was on her way to the dormitory when the clerk stopped her and handed her two letters. One was from Isabelle, gleefully telling her that the other members had approved Josephine’s membership into the club. Though she was unsure how it had happened—she still didn’t own her own bicycle, and she was still just a simple factory worker—Jo let out such a jubilant cry that it made the clerk jump. She wanted to visit the club as soon as she possibly could!

  At the sight of the second letter, however, Josephine felt a shudder all the way down to her bones. It was extremely official looking. Langbein and Kompagnon, Public Notary, Dieffenbach Strasse 11. Josephine knew the address, if not the name of the notary. It was a stately, cream-colored building on the edge of Luisenstadt. She opened the stiff envelope with jittery fingers. As the clerk stretched her neck toward her, Jo turned brusquely and marched away.

  She sat down on the first landing on the stairs, just outside the dormitory. As she read the letter, her eyes grew larger and larger. What in the world did it all mean?

  The notary peered at Josephine over the gold rim of his glasses and frowned. “To be absolutely frank, young lady, I cannot make heads or tails of the following passage in the will. But listen for yourself. ‘My dear Josephine, you have always been the daughter I never had. I will probably never be able to forgive myself for leaving you on your own when you most needed me. Dear child, I can only hope that your unfortunate experiences have not broken you but have instead made you stronger than you already were.’ ”

  Frieda’s nephew, Joachim Roth, cast Josephine a sideways glance.

  Josephine looked straight ahead. It was the reading of Frieda’s will that had brought her to this gloomy lawyer’s office.

  “Of all the places to meet again,” Lilo’s father had said by way of greeting, but he had not expressed any pleasure at the sight of her. His answers to Josephine’s questions about Lilo’s health and well-being had been curt. After that, they sat silently in the wood-paneled anteroom until the notary called them in.

  “ ‘I don’t know whether I can make amends for my failures. But I have one great and heartfelt wish upon my death, and I am in the fortunate position of being able to fulfill it—’ ” The notary paused briefly. He leafed through the pages of the will, the first few of which had covered the terms of Joachim and Lieselotte Roth’s inheritance. Josephine had been astonished to hear the sums Frieda had left to her Black Forest relatives. Did she really have so much money in the bank? Her old friend had always lived so modestly and had taken pleasure in the simplest things.

  “ ‘In my last letter, I wrote enthusiastically about the great plans I had for you. Unfortunately, it seems my time is running out too soon, and I won’t be there to support you. Now it is up to you alone to create a change in your life. I hope, however, that you will allow me to help you.’ ” The notary raised his eyebrows meaningfully. Jo couldn’t care less what he thought. She smiled sadly. With every word, she heard Frieda’s loving voice. What had Frieda planned for her?

  The notary soon answered her question.

  “ ‘To you, my dear Josephine, I leave my house and the attached workshop. I know that both will be in the best possible hands with you. I am being very selfish, but in this case, my selfishness has a good side; now you can finally realize your dreams.’ ”

  “An unknown woman is inheriting my aunt’s house?” Joachim Roth erupted. “That . . . that . . . that was her greatest wish? That’s nonsense! Can the law even allow such a thing?” He leaned across the notary’s desk.

  The notary recoiled. “I have checked everything most thoroughly,” he said, raising both hands in a gesture of apology.

  “But . . . the old woman was clearly not in her right mind when she wrote that!”

  It was so disrespectful of Lilo’s father to talk about his aunt like that. Josephine frowned. “I . . . I’m sorry,” she said weakly. Nothing else came to mind.

  Her own house! Frieda’s house. Though stunned and overjoyed, she also felt uneasy about inheriting such a treasure. How could she possibly be entitled to such a thing? Shouldn’t she turn it down? Tell Joachim Roth that he could have it? Or that Lilo could?

  “Excuse me, Mr. Roth, but I must contradict you there. Your aunt was very much in her right mind when she wrote this testament, because she did so here in my office, and there were two people present who are able to bear witness to precisely that fact. We cannot influence—nor would we want to—the content and choice of her words. It is, after all, the final will of a human being.”

  “But . . .”

  “I understand your anger. Still, I can only advise you to accept the deceased’s will. Keep in mind the substantial sums you and your daughter have inherited. The old house is worth little by comparison. Besides, challenging a will as watertight as Frieda Koslowski’s rarely ends up in favor of the plaintiff.” He looked resolutely into Joachim’s eyes, then he turned to Josephine. “I have something else for you,” he said, taking a brown envelope out of the thick file before him.

  The envelope felt heavy in Josephine’s hand. Please read this only once you are settled in my—or rather your—house, it said on the outside in Frieda’s distinctive handwriting.

  “I’m starting to see how Berliners protect their own.” Joachim Roth stood up abruptly. “I can see I have no additional business here.” He looked darkly at Josephine. “So this is the thanks we get for our hospitality in the Black Forest! I don’t even want to know what you did to creep into Frieda’s good books.” Without another word, he left the notary’s office.

  “Please don’t take that too seriously, young lady. I have experienced far worse in such matters. One last thing: the key to the house has been deposited with one Clara Gropius. A neighbor. Mrs. Koslowski assur
ed me that you know each other well,” said the notary.

  Josephine nodded.

  “Oh, by the way . . .” He cleared his throat. “It is highly unusual, I must say, for a young woman such as yourself to come into such an inheritance. It may well be that you don’t wish to live in the house in question. It is rather run-down, if I may be so bold. If that is the case, my office would be happy to assist you, should you wish to sell it. And when it comes to investing the monies realized, we would naturally be prepared—”

  Josephine stood up before the notary could continue. “That is very kind of you,” she said. “But I will accept Frieda’s inheritance as she intended me to.”

  Dust motes danced in the May sunshine when Josephine unlocked Frieda’s house. She had turned down Clara’s offer to accompany her. She had to do this alone.

  She stood hesitantly in the doorway and breathed in the old familiar smell of the house. The slightly sour smell of the apples stored in the cellar—would they still be any good?—and the moldy odor of old seed potatoes. There was a faint whiff of the violet soap that Frieda had always been so keen on, a thin, pale-purple sliver of which still rested beside the sink. Everything smelled as it always had. Yet everything was different. What was missing was the perfume of Frieda’s life: the smell of pancakes and bacon fat, the spicy aroma of the red wine she loved to drink. The smell of the pieces of liver she fried for Mousie. And the acrid bite of Frieda’s oil paints.

  She was surprised to see a large bouquet of lilacs, which Clara had left out on the kitchen table for her, no doubt with the best intentions. Frieda herself had never been able to bring herself to snip so much as a single cluster of flowers from the old lilac bush. She believed that flowers belonged in the garden, not in the house.