CHAPTER 3: THE CAPTAIN
Another month passed. The weather grew cool as colorful leaves drifted down from the trees to carpet the streets. Maria spent as little and saved as much as she could, and watched with satisfaction as her bank balance grew. Another few months, and she'd have saved enough to go back to school.
The progress toward her goal sustained Maria throughout the long evenings at the Crow's Nest, while she made dozens of trips from tables to the bar and back again, steering clear of Willem and his crows' shady business activities, peeking furtively at the Captain in his penguin suit, wondering about Marthe and Anna's trips to the back room with their customers.
One evening in November, out of nowhere, the Captain spoke to her at last.
"You, Fraulein."
"Yes, sir?"
Sir? Why on earth had she called him "sir?" The Crow's Nest was not the sort of place where the barmaids called the customers "sir." Maria felt a flush of embarrassment rise up her neck and color her cheeks.
"Why do you always stare at me that way?"
"It's your costume," she blurted.
"Costume?" He looked down at himself, perplexed. "These are ordinary evening clothes."
"Yes, I realize you're wearing them in the evening, but what makes them evening clothes?"
"They're worn on formal occasions," he said with exaggerated patience. "Balls, the theatre, that sort of thing. Tonight, for example, I attended the opera."
"The opera," she echoed, scrambling for a clever response. But Maria knew nothing about opera. Up close, his narrow eyes were the color of a stormy sea, and she could see a few silver threads in his thick dark hair.
"You like the opera, Fraulein?" He wasn't exactly smiling, but his expression was perhaps less forbidding than usual.
"Yes. I suppose I do," she fumbled. "Or I would. I mean, after all, I do give piano lessons. It's – ehrm – it's just that I've never actually been to the opera. I - I've been meaning to go, in fact. What do you recommend?"
His eyes flicked over her worn jumper and baggy skirt.
"I mean, I know I'm not suitably dressed," she flustered.
"Eh, Captain!" Willem jeered from behind her. "Why don't you go drink champagne with the other toffs?" Maria never thought she'd be grateful for Willem, but it was almost a relief when he interrupted a conversation that seemed to be growing more awkward by the minute. Then the bell rang to signal closing time and the Captain slipped by her without a word and disappeared into the night.
But Maria's humiliating ordeal didn't end there.
"I saw you talking to the Captain," Anna remarked as the four barmaids crossed the park. "I thought you weren't interested in a boyfriend."
"I'm not," Maria said crossly, hurrying to catch up with Lolly. "He's just a customer."
"Are you going to take him into the back room, little sister?" Marthe chimed in, and the two older girls laughed merrily, while Lolly said nothing, but gave Maria's hand a comforting squeeze.
Still, when the next Sunday night came, Maria, having made the appropriate inquiries, found herself in the standing-room ticket line at the State Opera House, clutching ten hard-earned shillings in her hand. Along with everyone else in the line, she turned in the direction of the sound: a burst of silvery laughter that came from not ten meters away, where a tall blonde woman, elegant in diamonds and fur, looked up adoringly at her handsome escort. It was the Captain, easily recognized even away from the Crow's Nest. There was a single heart-stopping moment when he looked in Maria's direction, but then she realized that of course, he was looking through, not at her. She watched as he put his hand on the woman's back and gently steered her into the building.
In the end, there were no standing room tickets available, but it didn't matter, because Maria had learned everything about the opera she needed to know. She had wasted her night off, but at least she hadn't wasted the ten shillings.
Later that night, while Lolly went down the hall to take a bath, Maria studied herself in the mirror over the bureau: the hair pulled back from her face into the long braid, the freckles, the sturdy figure hidden beneath a dowdy jumper. Perhaps she didn't look exactly like the other girls on the outside, but was she really that different on the inside? Did she want to be different? She had been so focused on the plan she brought with her from Dusterbach for so long, but now, everything was different somehow.
She began to unbraid her hair, letting the loosened curls spill down to her waist. Now she turned away from the mirror, looking over her shoulder to admire the curve of her back, just there, where the Captain's palm had rested. It had been weeks since the incident with Willem and the Captain, but still, that light pressure had been following her into her dreams.
Just then, Lolly bustled back into the room, trailing a damp towel and the strong scent of cheap soap.
"Lolly, when we go to work tomorrow, do you think I could possibly borrow one of your dresses? And that little pot of rouge?"
Lolly, true and loyal friend that she was, looked curious and a little surprised, but she only nodded approvingly and didn't ask any questions, not even the next afternoon, when they hurried to the Crow's Nest, huddled together under an umbrella in a futile attempt to escape the windswept autumn rain. By the time she reported for work, Maria was already regretting the borrowed dress, which had wilted damply against her skin, and her decision to give up her braid in favor of a soggy headful of frizzled curls.
The first half of the evening crawled by, but at last the Captain appeared, taking his usual seat at the bar. Taking a deep breath, Maria approached.
"Sir?"
"Hm," he grunted, without looking up.
"I was thinking, and I was wondering – ehrm –"
"What is it, Fraulein?" he said crisply, reaching for his second whiskey. Maria flung herself into the moment as though she were throwing herself off a cliff.
"Would you care to go with me? Into the back room, I mean."
He went absolutely still, the glass stopped halfway to his lips.
"I beg your pardon, Fraulein?"
Was he really going to force her to repeat herself?
"Back there," she managed a weak wave toward the back of the bar. "With me. That is, if you want to."
"With you? If I want to? Do you mean to tell me-" he peered at her, looking more confused than anything else, although with an edge that made her stomach flip. The Captain looked her over silently, top to toes, before putting his glass back on the bar and reaching for one of the curls that lay on her shoulder. When he lifted it into his upturned palm and carefully considered it, Maria's heart began to pound so loud, she was sure everyone could hear it. He slid from the barstool and stood, making himself even taller, and came up so close to her she could feel his breath on her cheek.
Letting go of her curl, he smeared his thumb against her cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch and brandished the reddened results under her nose. "What have you done to yourself? And what on earth are you wearing? And while we're at it, just how old are you, Fraulein?"
"I'm nineteen. Old enough," she said defensively.
It would have been better if he'd laughed at her, which would have allowed her to pretend it had been a joke. Or even if he'd shouted at her, which would have attracted Willem's attention and created a distraction. Instead, his lips twitched, as though he were trying to hide his amusement.
"Why, you're practically a lady! I have a daughter not much younger than you."
Maria was speechless with embarrassment. Before the hot tears stinging her eyes could spill, she fled, hoping that no one else had witnessed her humiliation. She darted out the door, across the pavement and into the street, splashing through puddles leftover from the afternoon's rain. But when she was safely across the street at the gates to the empty park, she stopped short.
"Bad things happen to folks who go in there alone," she heard Willem's voice in her ears, not just a warning but a threat.
Looking around, Maria spied a bench just inside the park gates, tucked safely behind a thicket of untamed foliage. She collapsed there, knuckling away the tears, until she could catch her breath. Very quickly, her shock and embarrassment gave way to anger. Willem was right: the Captain was a stuck-up snob, intruding where he wasn't welcome, looking down his nose at working people who were just trying to get by. And just what made him so superior, anyway? Hadn't he gone into the back room with Anna? What would his elegant, blonde lady friend think if she knew? Why, it was utterly indecent, a man with some actual gray hair behaving so.
Trees creaked and groaned against the gusty autumn breeze, which needled its way under her thin dress. Maria hesitated: should she continue through the deserted park alone, or wait here for Lolly? It was at least another hour until closing, she thought. How she regretted wearing this foolish dress, and how she longed for her jumper to pull around her!
When a burst of noise told her that the bar's doors had opened, she peered out cautiously from between the branches. It was the Captain, his elegant figure illuminated by the streetlamp, looking up and down the street. Maria shrank back from sight as he called out into the night.
"Fraulein! Fraulein?"
A moment later, the blue doors swung open again and Willem appeared. For one wild moment, Maria wondered if the two of them had joined forces to search for her, until Willem grabbed the Captain's shoulder. "Eh, Captain!" Willem leered. "I've been waiting a long time to get you alone, mate. Let's have your wallet," he demanded.
"Now hold on there, young man," the Captain shook off Willem's hand.
"And your watch, Captain Snob! Hand them over before you find yourself in real trouble!"
Willem gave his victim a hard shove, but the Captain didn't even stumble before, lightning fast, his fist connected with Willem's chin, sending the younger man tumbling to the ground. When the two Fritzes appeared out of nowhere, Maria opened her mouth to sound an alarm, but the sound somehow died in her throat. While the Captain got in a few more solid blows, he was simply outnumbered by the three men. Maria watched with growing horror as they laid into him with fists and boots, while the air filled with smacks and groans and a sickening thud when the Captain's chin hit the pavement. Once the attackers had their victim on the ground, one Fritz deprived him of his wallet while the other took his watch.
By now, there had been more than enough time for Maria to call for help. But still, something held her back in the shadows, helpless.
"Let's go, boys!" Willem said at last, landing a last brutal kick, and then the three men sauntered off, exchanging bragging congratulations with each other. The two Fritzes slapped each other on the back so enthusiastically that one of them failed to notice when the Captain's wallet tumbled from his back pocket and into the gutter.
After all the commotion, the street lay silent. The Captain lay motionless on the ground, face-down in a puddle of mud. Maria crept from her hiding place, her heart filled with dread. Could he possibly be dead, the victim of her cowardly hesitation? Relief washed over her when he let out a broken moan. Alive, then.
Maria turned toward the bar, intending to get help, when she caught sight of the wallet lying in the gutter. She bent to retrieve it and straightened up in time to see that the Captain had risen on his elbows and seemed to be starting straight at her, although with both his eyes blackened and swollen shut, it was hard to know if he had seen her at all. He lifted his head long enough to spit filthy water out onto his bloody chin and began to struggle to his feet, each bit of progress marked by an anguished gasp for breath.
Maria stood rooted to the spot, frantic, yet unable to move, unable to speak. She tried to make sense of the situation, but she was in too much of a panic to think clearly. Her first concern was Willem, who could easily convince his father that he'd had no part in the attack and would turn his fists on her if he knew she'd witnessed it. But she was also afraid of the Captain. If he had seen her with the wallet, he might easily believe her to have been an accomplice, especially since she had done nothing to intervene. He would want revenge however he could get it.
The blue doors swung open one last time, and Lolly emerged, peering out into the darkness.
"Maria? Are you out here? Why did you - dear God," Lolly gasped, "is that you, Captain?"
Maria shrank back into the shadows beyond the streetlamp's light. Knowing that now there was someone to come to the Captain's aid, she let her feet make the decision for her. She turned and ran, slipping in the mud-slicked street, plunging into the deserted park, more afraid of what lay behind her than what lay ahead. She ran and she ran, blood thundering in her ears, longer and harder than she had since she was a girl, until she was through the park. She turned in the opposite direction from the boardinghouse and continued, her pace slowing as she began to tire, not bothering to hide from the occasional taxi or bus that passed by. When she thought she could go no further, she spotted a small church just ahead. Thinking of how many times she had taken refuge with Father Leo, she glanced around nervously and then slipped inside.
The church was empty. Its thick stone walls held in a damp chill, and a single flickering candle barely eased the darkness. Maria hadn't been inside a church since leaving Dusterbach two years before. Turning her back to the altar, she set her back to a rough pillar, slid to the floor, and contemplated her circumstances.
There was nowhere in Vienna where she was safe from Willem or the Captain. Her tidy plan to return to school was in ruins. Her savings would evaporate quickly without her job at the Crow's Nest, and with no money-
Only then did she realize she still clutched the Captain's wallet. When she dropped it into her lap, it fell open, revealing a thick wad of bills. A knot of bitter anger formed in Maria's stomach. The man was walking around the streets of Vienna with enough money to have paid her school fees and rent for a year. Her whole life could have been different for a cost he barely would have felt!
But her anger was tempered by the shameful, perplexing knowledge that she had done nothing to help him. Surely the Captain's lack of interest in her, while embarrassing, did not justify such mistreatment. She reminded herself that she could not have intervened without Willem turning on her. And what kind of help would have mattered, with Willem's doting parents behind the bar and the police absent from the rough neighborhood and the abandoned houses that flanked the Crow's Nest? Oh, why couldn't the man have stayed at the opera, where he belonged? Then none of this would have happened.
There was no point in looking backward, she told herself. What she needed to do was make a new plan.
But Maria did not seem able to clear her mind and consider her options. Instead, she continued to turn the wallet in her lap, this way and that, until something slid from an inner compartment and landed on the stone floor with a clink.
It was a white-enameled medal in the shape of a cross, with four narrow arms that flared in a curve to be broader at the perimeter, just the right size to fit her palm. Whether religious or military, she didn't know. There was no engraving to offer a clue.
Shivering in the cold, dank air, Maria glanced nervously at the altar. Father Leo was always telling her to look for the will of God, but what would he make of this situation? She'd behaved badly, toward a stuck-up dandy who had hurt her feelings, although he had done her no real harm. She had no way to make it right, having been rewarded with a lapful of cash, but deprived of the opportunity to pursue her dream with it. And that medal – was it a sign that the prayers she had never offered were being heard anyway, or denied?
The life she'd begun to plan for back in Dusterbach was farther out of reach than ever, that much was clear. Minutes and hours crawled by while Maria pretended to ponder her fate, although deep inside, she knew she had no choice but to admit defeat. When the sun rose, she would be on the first bus to Salzburg and from there, she would make her reluctant return to Dusterbach.
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Thanks for all the kind reviews! Just in case it's not glaringly obvious about the medal, take a peek at Georg's medal in the party scene (not that you need an excuse to watch the Laendler). I don't own TSOM, I just do this for love!