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

by Petra Durst-Benning

  Her tired legs were forgotten. Josephine ran to the man she loved.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Adrian whispered after a fervent embrace. “Six hundred miles on a bicycle . . . You’re among the first women to do it, ever! With this race, you’ve shown that women are just as capable as men.”

  Jo looked up at him, her eyes shining. “Do you think so?”

  Adrian nodded. “We’ll have women lining up to be our customers when they hear what you’ve done. This race is the best free advertising for women’s cycling! And you are the best spokeswoman imaginable.”

  Josephine frowned in mock indignation. “Me? A spokeswoman? And who said anything about my being free? You’ll have to offer me at least a little something. After all, I’m a winner now!” She said the last words with feigned arrogance.

  “How about this?” With an elegant flourish, Adrian took a leather case from his pocket and opened it.

  Josephine had to muffle a cry when she saw the gold ring set with a ruby.

  “The ruby stands for your fighter’s heart,” said Adrian, his voice heavy with emotion. “You taught me how important it is not only to dream my dreams but to fight for them. Without you, I’d probably still be sitting in my father’s offices, pushing numbers around.”

  Jo looked at the ground. “That’s not—” she began, but Adrian laid one finger gently but firmly to her lips.

  “To me, you are the most beautiful, the best, and the most wonderful woman in the world. I can’t imagine my life without you anymore, but my life with you becomes clearer every day.” Adrian’s face was infused with love. “Will you marry me?”

  “Oh,” said Jo in a small voice. “If that’s how it is . . .” She threw her arms around his neck, stood on tiptoes, and kissed him on the lips. “Yes, I will.”

  Epilogue

  Berlin, four weeks later

  Josephine ran out of the warehouse for the umpteenth time. It was just before one in the afternoon, and they wanted to open the doors at two. Still no guests in sight. Good. That gave her a chance to check everything one final time. She wanted everything at their opening party to be perfect, down to the last detail.

  She and Adrian had been busy with the preparations all week. Working together was so much fun that they regularly lost track of time and worked until late in the night.

  The first thing they did was rid the bikes of the dust they had accumulated on their long transatlantic journey and polish them until they gleamed. They were fortunate that all of them had arrived in perfect condition. The warehouse in the industrial area of Feuerland that Irene had rented only as an interim solution turned out to be perfect for their purposes, and Adrian had immediately signed a long-term lease with the owner.

  Men’s and women’s bicycles stood neatly separated into two distinct sections. The sight of all the elegant Crescent Bikes lined up side by side made Josephine’s heart beat a little faster every time she looked at them.

  When Adrian had first shown her the bicycles, she had immediately taken one of the women’s models for a test ride. She fell in love with it right away. The Crescent Bike was elegant, agile, and fast—Josephine felt completely stable and safe. As for the price . . . They would sell the bicycles for one hundred and eleven marks, Adrian decided. It was below anything else on the imported bicycle market, and given their own purchase price of fifty marks, they would still earn a tidy profit, said Adrian, who was hoping for high sales.

  Who knows? Perhaps we’ll make our first sale today, Josephine thought, as she admired the colorful pennants she and Adrian had strung over the entrance. Large vases filled with sunflowers stood on the floor to the left and right of the main door. Their sign—eight feet long and three feet high, emblazoned with “Neumann’s Crescent Bikes and Repair Shop”—gleamed yellow and blue in the sun.

  Everything was ready . . .

  “Jo? Josephine, where are you?” Josephine’s heart fluttered when she saw Adrian striding toward her. He already seemed so much nimbler than just a few weeks earlier. The therapy that the doctors in the Charité had prescribed really seemed to be working.

  “You haven’t changed yet?”

  Josephine laughed. “Aren’t I pretty enough for you like this?” she said, displaying the oil-smeared dress she had worn to clean the bicycles. Her ruby engagement ring sparkled in the sunlight as she gave a playful twirl in the grimy outfit.

  Adrian had officially announced their engagement as soon as they returned from Denmark. He had not allowed himself to get into any discussions with his father. “Either you welcome my bride or you don’t say a word,” he had said, which had stopped the old man in his tracks. But the magnate had fought enough wars to know when he was beaten. With a slightly cantankerous air, he had accepted Josephine into his family, but he had grown friendlier when he heard that Josephine had built up her own workshop from scratch. “I started that way myself, way back when. Beginnings are always the best,” he had said with a sentimental note in his voice. Then he shook both her and Adrian’s hands firmly and wished them the best of luck.

  “The wine is cold, and the plates of hors d’oeuvres will be here in half an hour . . .” Adrian looked over the long tables covered with white tablecloths. “You’re really sure we shouldn’t open your workshop today?” he said and looked at Josephine with his head tilted inquiringly.

  She nodded. “That door stays closed. We don’t want to give people the impression that the first thing a Crescent Bike needs is a workshop, do we?”

  Adrian laughed. “But I’m allowed to mention it, aren’t I? It’s a service bonus we’re offering, after all: ‘Free repairs for a year!’ ” He swept his hands in the air as if displaying a banner. “I doubt any of our competitors can match that.”

  It had been Adrian’s idea to move Josephine’s workshop out of Luisenstadt. The move had been a difficult decision, because it meant losing several of her favorite customers, including Oskar Reutter. But from a business perspective, the move was the right one. She consoled herself with the knowledge that Adrian wanted to move into Frieda’s house with her after their wedding in December.

  “Certainly you can mention it. But our cleverer customers might already know we do repairs from our sign!” Josephine said. She looked toward the entrance. “Do you think Isabelle and Leon will come?” She hadn’t seen her old friend since their return from Denmark.

  Adrian shrugged. “No idea. Maybe she’s calmed down, maybe not. I ran into Leon at the club a few days ago. He told me that Isabelle is back on her feet again and doing fine. The doctors in Copenhagen chastised her for going too far with all the dope. Too much kola syrup can cause not only a circulatory collapse but death from cardiac failure.”

  For a moment, they stood in troubled silence.

  Then Jo, suddenly anxious, said, “What if no one comes at all?”

  “That’s the last thing I’m worried about,” Adrian laughed. “The minute you offer free food, people will be there, believe me. Besides, our friends and clubmates wouldn’t let us down!”

  “Then maybe I really should go and change,” she said. And she hurried off toward the office, where she had stowed her dress.

  Clara took a deep breath. Then she knocked on the door of her husband’s office.

  Gerhard was sitting at his desk, as he always did on Saturday afternoon, finishing up the weekly accounts for the practice.

  “I’ve dropped Matthias off with my mother. He can stay there until this evening,” said Clara, setting down a cup of tea beside him. Black tea, steeped for three minutes, with a slice of lemon, just the way he liked it.

  “Hmm,” he said without looking up from the rows and columns of numbers.

  “No doubt you saw the big announcement in the paper,” Clara went on. “The one about Adrian Neumann’s grand opening of his new business. That’s where I’m going now.” She held her breath as she waited for his reaction. It wasn’t long in coming.

  “What do you mean? I forbid you—”

  “B
ut I won’t let you forbid me, never again,” Clara broke in. She was shaking so hard on the inside that she had to steady herself on the edge of his desk. It took all her effort to keep her voice calm. “I’ve been thinking about a great deal over the last few weeks. About you and me and my friends Josephine and Isabelle. You know, they’ve become real heroines since the race in Denmark! You’re such a keen newspaper reader . . . No doubt you’ve seen the articles praising what they did.” She couldn’t do anything about the slightly hateful tone of her voice. “No, I will not let you stop me!” she said sharply as soon as Gerhard opened his mouth to reply. “Fine, be an enemy of women’s cycling for the rest of your life. And you don’t have to like Jo and Isabelle. They don’t like you, either. But they are my friends, and they will stay my friends. I will not let you deny me those friendships.” She pulled on her gloves as if such a scene between them was the most normal thing in the world. But her heart was pounding. She saw his expression growing darker, and she stepped quickly back to the door before he could lay a hand on her. With her fingers already on the handle, she paused. “And there’s something else I’ve been wanting to say to you for a long time.” She took a deep breath. “Don’t you ever hit me again. Do you hear me? Never again.”

  She left the room. Unfortunately, she did not turn back, or she would have seen the look of utter dismay on her husband’s face.

  “Stop the coach. We have to pick something up,” said Isabelle when they were in front of the best flower shop in the city.

  “You ordered flowers? Great!” said Leon, jumping out of the carriage to hold the door open for Isabelle. How fortunate that women thought of such things!

  “Not flowers,” said Isabelle, taking hold of his hand and stepping out. “Something better.”

  “A laurel wreath?” said Leon, heaving the wagon-wheel-sized arrangement into the carriage. Across the wreath was a silken banner. “ ‘Laurels have a bitter reek, for those who have, and those who seek,’ ” Leon read aloud. “That’s a strange saying . . . What does it mean?”

  “It’s an old folk adage,” Isabelle replied. “Jo will understand what I’m trying to say.” As the coach rolled off again, she looked out joylessly at the passing city.

  Leon, who had grown accustomed to Isabelle’s strange frame of mind in recent weeks, sighed. Whatever he said or did, however charming he might be—he had only rarely managed to make her laugh since their return from Denmark.

  “I looked death right in the eye!” she had screamed when he had complained about her bad mood. “Nothing is the same after that. Nothing, don’t you see?”

  Yes, he saw. And no, he didn’t.

  She had survived. So why did she have to suddenly start thinking so deeply about everything?

  Another thing he didn’t understand was his own reaction to her strange behavior. Normally, if he found himself involved with a moody woman, he would simply have packed up and left. But with Isabelle . . . there was something about her that held him back. Was it his guilt over not being with her in her hour of need?

  Leon was not the kind of man to think long or hard about his own feelings, but he had known for a long time that a great deal more bound him to Isabelle than to his previous liaisons. Her titian hair, her catlike eyes, and her striking cheekbones. Her full lips and the way the top one could curl so saucily—Leon never tired of looking at Isabelle. He couldn’t get enough of her, it was true, and that had nothing to do with guilt.

  But there was more to it than that: the fact that she came from a rich family, that she had good morals, a good education—those were all things that Leon secretly admired, though he would never openly admit such a thing. She had the courage to stand up to her father, and the fortitude to not let anyone dictate how she ought to live her life. Weren’t they alike in that regard? He, too, had no intention of working himself to death in his parents’ vineyard! They were two kindred souls . . . Was that the root of the attraction between them? Or did the fact that Isabelle was a “good match” play a role? At the very least, a rich wife can’t hurt, he thought with a grin. Cycling was an expensive pastime. If he’d had better equipment, there was no way Susanne Lindberg would have gotten the better of him in Denmark!

  Leon searched his mind feverishly for something to cheer Isabelle up. It was rare for him to find himself at a loss for words. But before he could come up with something, Isabelle signaled to the driver to pull over again and stop near the Victory Column.

  With her arms folded across her chest, she looked at him sullenly and said, “What do you have in mind for our future? Do you think I’m the kind of girl you can string along forever? I want clarity. Certainty. I want a future. A future worth living for. Look around!” She made a sweeping gesture toward the city around them. “Everyone here has plans! Everyone except me.” She sounded desperate, but a little like a sullen child, too.

  Leon found her simply enchanting. “Who says so?” he heard himself answering. “You’re coming with me, of course. Berlin is a wonderful city, but I miss the forests and mountains of the Rhineland-Palatinate. I’m overdue for some training in the mountains. Besides, in June they start cutting back the foliage in our vineyard, and every hand is needed.” What am I going on about? he asked himself. He’d always tried to dodge the work in the vineyard. But suddenly he felt a strange urge to hold a pair of pruning shears in his hands again. His nose longed for the smell of the fire they made from the vine cuttings.

  Isabelle looked at him wide-eyed. Her future lay in his hands—her eyes told him nothing less.

  Leon straightened up. “Now that I’ve gotten to know your home, it’s time you got to know mine. Who knows, maybe you’ll like life in Rhineland-Palatinate so much that you’ll want to stay longer?” Leon doubted that very much, but he was finding so much pleasure in his speech that he didn’t question it anymore.

  “Was that a proposal of marriage?” asked Isabelle breathlessly.

  Leon screwed up his face as if he had a toothache. How he hated that word! He’d managed to avoid it successfully all these years. But now he merely shrugged and said, “I guess it probably was. Not that I would have lasted much longer as a free man! But you need a fellow as crazy as me beside you. That doesn’t leave me with much choice but to marry you, does it?”

  A moment later they were in each other’s arms. Having Isabelle’s body pressed so close to his went straight to his core. With a groan, he tried to slip his right hand under her skirt, but his exertions were interrupted by the clearing of a throat.

  “Should we be gettin’ along now, or what?” the coachman shouted down to them.

  How quickly the tide could turn . . . Isabelle could have hugged the world! From the depths of despair one moment to a bright and beautiful future the next. She pictured herself as Leon’s wife. A winemaker in beautiful Rhineland-Palatinate. She gave a giddy laugh as they walked across the large yard that led to Adrian’s bicycle shop.

  She had been terribly jealous of him and Josephine and all their plans. But then again, wasn’t running a bicycle shop rather average?

  “We won’t stay long, all right?” she said and smiled meaningfully at Leon. “My parents are away in Potsdam for the weekend.”

  “And what does that have to do with how long we spend at Adrian’s party?”

  “Well, it means two things. First, we’ll have the house to ourselves,” she said, casting him a coquettish look. “And second, no one will be there to stop me when I pack my things.”

  “Pack your things? You mean . . . you want to fly the coop? Just like that?”

  “Yes,” said Isabelle plainly. She had rarely managed to really throw Leon, which made this moment even more delicious. “My father would never allow me to marry you. He dug up a new marriage candidate for me long ago.”

  “But . . . you’d be risking a serious rift! Wouldn’t that cause some trouble? I mean, brides get a dowry, don’t they? And—”

  “As if I care about my father’s money,” Isabelle scoffed. “Besides
, you said yourself that you miss your home. The sooner we go, the better. As far as I’m concerned, we can leave tomorrow!” She grinned. “Oh, there are our young lovers now,” she said, pointing to Adrian and Josephine, who were just stepping outside.

  After a rather stiff greeting and congratulating them on the opening, Isabelle handed them the laurel wreath. “Here. For you,” she said to Josephine. “Thank you for saving my life in Denmark. Whatever else might come between you and me, I will never forget that.”

  “It was nothing, really,” murmured Josephine. She held up the silken band with the saying printed across it. “ ‘Laurels have a bitter reek, for those who have, and those who seek.’ ”

  Isabelle shrugged. “Well, one victory isn’t enough. The next one has to come sometime. And then the next. It can put you under a lot of pressure. That’s not for me!” she said with deep conviction. “From now on, I’m only going to ride a bicycle for pleasure. There are great adventures to be had away from the road. Isn’t that true, darling?” She looked fondly at Leon.

  “Ahem.” The sound made all four of them turn.

  “Excuse me, I don’t mean to disturb you,” said a stout young woman. She had calloused hands and the red cheeks of someone who spent most of her time working outside. “I’m a washerwoman. One of them bicycles would sure come in handy for bringin’ the wash back to my customers. Could you help me choose one?”

  Josephine and Adrian exchanged a look and smiled. Then Adrian said, “My fiancée will be very happy to take care of you.”

  Isabelle smiled as Josephine walked off with her very first customer.

  Notes:

  If anything [can] change the German character, it will be the German woman. She herself is changing rapidly—advancing, as we call it. Ten years ago no German woman caring for her reputation, hoping for a husband, would have dared to ride a bicycle: today they spin about the country in their thousands. The old folks shake their heads at them; but the young men, I notice, overtake them and ride beside them.