Chapter 7: Vienna

Georg always tried to hold back the first cigarette of the morning until he had the first cup of coffee to hand. Somehow, it always seemed right to pair the burns together: one velvety as each sip poured over his tongue, the other almost scratchy as it hit his lungs. Some mornings, he couldn't quite manage, but at least today, in Vienna, a welcome guest in Elsa's townhouse—away from the mess of Aigen and Salzburg—it was a little easier. Or maybe it was the time, drifting away little by little, remembering the past days.

O O O

Sunday evening troubled Georg, something lingering he couldn't quite knock from his mind. It had only been an hour or two—perhaps even three—an afternoon to think about something other than how much he despised God—how much he dreaded the approaching drive back to them—but something of her clung to him. Was it the tiny moments of joy she couldn't quite keep bundled up, the little memories she couldn't quash but instead went on about without a thought? God, he couldn't quite decide. A cigarette and a small glass brandy didn't quell it, even when he gulped both down, grinding his teeth against his desire for another of both. Not even an early evening shower was able to burn it all away. Really, it was still been the afternoon when he threw himself into the scalding waterfall, almost as soon as he hurried up the stairs to his flat and had the lock snapped closed behind him. His clothes stripped away, a spray of hot water washing over his shoulders—down his chest—across his hips—between his thighs and finally down his legs…

Georg didn't bothered to see to his hair, dry enough especially in winter that it didn't need scrubbing with shampoo powder more than two or three times a week. Instead, he just let his mind wander as the water washed away the day. He had laughed as the breeze bit at both their faces—once, or was it more?—and it hadn't even been hollow and dark. And even for a moment, the past had wandered into now, all the years about ships on the rolling, restless seas, an occasional storm whipped up about the hull and deck, more frightening than he had allowed himself to say. But all those years beneath the ocean, somehow it had been easier. No enemy ships to search for across the horizon, no fear of cannons or guns. Beneath the waves, he was never the hunted, only the hunter. Searching, following, almost calling...He wrenched the tap closed immediately, the heat of his shower giving way to the winter chill even in the steam coating the washroom like a fog, one hand slammed hard against the tile. Why did that word bother him so, and so suddenly?

The towel was rough, almost scraping over his skin as he dried himself, hurrying into his dressing gown, nearly slamming the washroom door against the warmth and humidity. Another cigarette, another glass of brandy in his chair beside the tiny table—the twins to the ones he had gulped down the first moment he closed the door to his barren flat—the burn searing his lungs and his throat. I needed to be distracted, he had thought as the haze built around him and his eyes glazed slightly with. But you are more distracting than I thought. Maybe I should have known all last week that I would need a distraction from you.

Sleep Sunday evening was a struggle, his trousers tied a little too tight around his waist, the cotton a little too coarse against his thighs and his dressing gown too rough against his chest. The tiny lamp on his bedside table turned off, he closed his eyes every now and then—opening them again after a minute to remember, to drink her in again. Her dark hair still haunted him, knotted in that same dark braid she wore every night, brown eyes brilliant and shining. Tears of happiness until they no longer were, instead merely tears of grief and sorrow. But occasionally, whenever Georg closed his eyes for a brief moment, it wasn't those dark eyes and hair staring back at him: blue eyes and fair hair tied into a messy plait instead, thin arms and legs hardly visible beneath a winter dress and coat. How are you this distracting? he had asked himself, finally throwing his dressing gown away as he tossed aside the bedclothes, his nipples hardening for a moment in the cold before he pulled them back again, locking out the night. I don't think one day of you is enough, even if I don't quite know why.

Monday was a day of preparation. There was nothing to worry about in the small icebox tucked into the corner of the flat; he ate his meals out at cafés. At least there, he didn't have to pretend a conversation across a plate, wondering what a friend—lover—child—would ask or say. So much quieter even with the bustle of Salzburg's streets around him, just the fork and knife clinking against the plate at breakfast, tearing apart a large slice of toast covered with a thin smear of butter and two large slices of ham. He hardly tasted it. But the quiet, the solitude...expected, craved. Exactly what he needed.

But with breakfast eaten, a coffee alongside—his first cigarette delayed until he could buy another package from a tobacconist—he turned the locks to the small flat tightly. The laundry from the days since he left the villa was in his valise, toted along to the car he parked along the street. The roof pulled forward, it looked less ornate than it might in the summer, the wind on his face when he would escape the past again, but still too fancy for ordinary hooligans to meddle with it. Where he left it parked most days...Anyone with half a mind would know it would be reported instantly. But now, all that was left was the road he dreaded.

As always, it was a late morning departure from Salzburg, a slow drive along the curving roads to Aigen—pavement and cobblestone giving way to dust and gravel—and a sigh of relief as he opened the front door to an empty foyer. It was the school hours, after all. No children shouting and scampering about, no excited cries to see him again after only a day away...no memories. At least until evening, he reminded himself, the dread already knotting in his stomach. Another day in his study—the lock bolted at the first sound of the children as they returned from their days of lessons and books and maps. It's too much, he thought as the chatter echoed through the hall, at least for me, here, even if you face that sound and clamoring every day. Even here, how was she clinging to him?

The eldest of the children were long in their rooms when Georg took his supper in the dining room, tasting a little more of the dumplings the cook had prepared than the last time he remembered them gracing the dinner table. Or perhaps it was the wine livening the dish, a little sharper and brighter than he remembered.

The telegram arrived far later than usual, Franz in the doorway as he drained the last of his glass, sending one of the maids back to the kitchen with the slice of chocolate cake cook took so much pride in. One of you will enjoy it, he thought, the thin yellow paper slippery between his fingers as he opened it, the words printed across the page utterly expected.

Georg won't you come to Vienna STOP I know you're miserable around Salzburg STOP I'll be waiting for you tomorrow if you do Elsa

That's hardly a question, he thought, the paper crinkling again as he folded it back up before he slipped it into his pocket. I hardly think you'd appreciate waiting up until late in the night just wondering.

"Franz?"

The butler's feet shuffled on the rug, approaching the end of the table. "Sir?"

"I will be leaving for Vienna in the morning."

"Will you be gone long, more than usual?"

Georg nodded as his fingers drummed on the polished wood. Another glass of wine would be lovely, or perhaps a small glass of brandy. "Perhaps."

"Very well—"

"No!" Georg snapped, sitting a little straighter in his chair. If he left some time tomorrow—arrived by the evening—he would have to leave by midday on Saturday. An hour or two to see to the house, hardly any time at all to make his way back to Salzburg proper on a Saturday evening. "Just a few days, this time." Franz was murmuring something—all the things he would worry over for the coming week—but Georg waved him away after a moment. The man was perfectly capable of running the household, and for the best, really. After all, Sunday afternoon, after half of this week in Vienna...he had somewhere he needed to be.

How very interesting, he thought, at last surrendering to the brandy on the side table. The alcohol burned down his throat as he took a first gulp. I never imagined I would need to be distracted from my distraction. I can't think you meant to get your claws into me like that, Maria, but here we are.

Again on Tuesday, Georg woke well after the sun was in the sky, the children already walking to school. At least now, he didn't worry about them quite as much, the snow melted—at least apart from a drift that had frozen into a small mountain of ice—and the temperature rising every now and then. You'll be fine, coming back. There isn't that much, and you've always loved lobbing snowballs at one another, almost as much as we loved watching...No, I can't.

As the morning wore on—breakfast and coffee and cigarettes devoured without a child in sight—Georg's breaths grew easier. He caught one of the maids, giving her instructions as to what to pack in valise, ignoring her confusion at the demand. She was quite new to the household, hired after...I can't think about it. But she wasn't used to him demanding her to pack him a suitcase for the next few days, almost as though she was frightened of touching a man's clothes. Wouldn't you be as well, if it was you?

Stop it, Georg reminded himself as he gathered everything for the next days. A coat, that small suitcase—the clothes probably folded a little haphazardly by nervous hands—one of the hats Agathe adored seeing just a little askew on his hair. After all, it was only a few days, not forever. Everything in his chest tightened. It's not a lifetime.

It was a short set of instructions for the household staff: the gardener to continue preparing the grounds and fields for the coming spring, the household manager to continue on repairs he had identified a few weeks earlier. For the maids and staff that lived their lives indoors, the only command was to follow Frau Schmidt and Franz's orders. After the long months since the world had changed, they had grown accustomed to giving more commands than usual to the junior staff. At least as the car's engine started—its first rumbles and the first squeals of the tires against the dirt on the road suddenly welcome when they were often troubling to hear—his chest loosened, leaving it all behind. At least I'll be there, and I won't have to be here.

Georg stopped in town for lunch, a quick plate of fish and vegetables and fried potatoes, once again not quite tasting anything. Even on the drive from Aigen, his foot on the gas pedal had been light, the shifting of gears slower than even when the wind whipped across his face in summer, the car's roof was folded back to let in the warm air. You never liked me driving too fast, after all. More than one car swerved around him, the driver probably loosing a few foul words that would turn her head. And I know you don't like what that man probably just said...Don't! Christ, you were just meant to be a pretty face, just for an afternoon.

Night had fallen by the time his car came to a stop before Elsa's townhouse, double-parked as Georg made his way along the smooth pavement. Dormant hedges lined either side of the walk, Vienna's current layer of snow not quite as thick as the ones that had dusted Salzburg and Aigen over the course of the winter. The snow that must have coated the path was long gone, not even just thrown aside as it sometimes was at the villa; after all, the older children still found joy in the chilly drifts, sometimes even persuading Frau Bauer to let Marta join them in the volleys of snowballs. "It's a war!" Friedrich had shouted once years ago, a hand almost across his face as Georg heard it echo across the back grounds. "Don't you ever make light of that again!" he had shouted at his eldest son, Agathe quickly pulling him away, back onto the terrace. "There's years for him to learn better, Georg, before you send him off to school, even if can't be the navy."

"You could always calm me, couldn't you?" Georg whispered, taking the few steps up to Elsa's front door. Wrought iron banisters banked either side of the way, a few patches of ice here and there where the damp had grown too thick. "Over anything."

The doorbell rang shrill and loud through the deepening night, the same man he had left only a few hours earlier opening the door for him. Or nearly the same: the starched shirt and tie and vest identical, white and black, and the eyes forcefully empty. "One moment," he murmured, spinning around and disappearing into the winding halls of the Schräder townhouse. Fewer than the villa in Salzburg he had left late this morning—Vienna's roads and parks hemmed in the size of any home, unlike the countryside of Aigen where they could sprawl as much as they desired—but still more twisting and winding about one another. Almost a labyrinth, sometimes, just like the men and especially the women who wandered—"

"Darling!" Elsa's voice cut into his thoughts, drawing his eyes right to her. Long, almost violently blond hair piled atop her head, probably a long moment with her maid this morning as she sat at her vanity, perfumes and powders scattered across the lacquered table. As ever, it was a sweeping dress belted high at her waist, shoes snapping against the hard wood as she hurried to him.

"Elsa—"

She pulled his hands into hers, one of her polished nails scratching at his palm. "It feels like it's been forever."

Forever? Georg thought as he nodded, not resisting her as she tugged him closer. I never thought months could last a lifetime. "It has been."

O O O

Georg focused on his cigarette first, taking a sip of coffee now and then, the deep brown brew cooling minute by minute. The grounds would be settling, the liquid thinning and lightening as it sat. But he still took a sip every minute or so, shuddering as the bitterness grew. And whenever he left his little porcelain cup on the small round table—mahogany, gold leaf of some sort around the edge, modern in construction if not in design—his hand dove into his jacket pocket, just turning it over and again.

He knew every curve of that little whistle: steel, rounded just to fit into the dips of his palm, a chain for it to hang around his neck, though he never wore it. Not all those years earlier, and never now. Despite the rumors of rustless steel becoming the new standard, Georg hadn't been able to stand the idea of it seeing the wind and the rain, even if just a few years before, it would have dangled around his collar in the cold and damp, and always feeling the bite of the salty air from the gentle rollings waves of the Mediterranean as his U-boat surfaced when the waters were safe from Allied ships. He had another one for that, when the English and French and finally the American ships were stalking the seas harder and faster. But this one…

Georg ran his thumb along the side he would always hold with his fingers rather than his whole hand, the little marks and letters long ago memorized, like a blind man reading a page of instructions with his fingertips rather than his eyes. For my beloved Captain. All my love, Agathe. Liesl had already been in her lap when she handed it to him, wrapped in fine white tissue paper, his final trip back from the ocean at last complete. Finished and done, unless the world turned itself upside down anew, and the empire was reborn, miles and miles of coastline and hours and hours of just watching the waves crash against the rocks suddenly real again.

It was tucked into his pocket nearly every day, his fingers twisted around the tiny nooks from the top to the bottom. Whether he was trapped at the villa with the children and staff and memories—here in Vienna, whether in the bedroom Elsa offered to him or her own, or the dining room of her townhouse—or even on Sunday chatting with that ridiculous girl...It was almost a talisman, a token, something to hold. A hundred little memories clung to it: a gentle touch, a quiet laugh, a hand that clutched at his when he least expected it. Whether they walked the streets from shop to shop in search of a birthday gift for one of the children or he had collapsed onto her in their bed—sated and winded—her fingers twisted with his as they both struggled to breathe...You never quite wanted to let me go, did you?

Georg lifted his small cup to his mouth again—but the coffee had long ago gone cold. He'd forgotten about it, really, lost in the memories that flooded back over him when he refused to hold them back. Or maybe it was just easier here, Georg wondered, finally tugging that whistle from his pocket. Silver and delicate, gentle curves against his palm. "Just like you," he murmured, gulping down the last frigid mouthful of coffee. There would be another when Elsa finally emerged from bed to greet the world. Elsa...

Nothing about Elsa had surprised him last night, not from the moment that grizzled butler opened the ornate front door. He remembered the man from the first day Agathe insisted on a weekend in Vienna to visit her old friend, white hair retreating from his temples and grey sideburns descending along his cheek almost to the peak of his chin. Not her gentle embrace that fell away a little quicker than he would prefer as she pressed a quick kiss to either of his cheeks. Not her little laughs as she asked how he had been since she last saw him, her polished nails gently grazing the back of his hands as she called for her cook to set him a plate for a late dinner, a glass of wine for both of them: a match for his meal, a nightcap for her. Most certainly not her placid moans as her legs tangled around his between the sheets of her bed, probably well practiced in the years since her husband's death. I don't know why I shouldn't think so, he thought, another deep breath on his cigarette burning in his lungs. You're just like the rest of them, except that Agathe liked you more than any of them. Not that it mattered, he had torn himself away from her long before there was any chance of some lasting hold on him.*

Georg had tolerated spending the night beside her, still turning away from her as soon as his heart rate began to slow, a little less troubled than before...had it been a month, two? When the weeks had begun to bleed away—anymore, he hardly knew how many months had been swallowed up by the world turned in on itself—somehow, everything that he might have hated himself for was turning easier.

"You were a rare one, love," he whispered, turning the whistle between his first two fingers, trying to avoid tangling the chain between the smaller ones. "You knew that, I think. Rare and lovely." It gleamed in the electric lights burning all around Elsa's salon, once or twice picking up a vase of silken flowers from across the room waiting to be replaced when the first spring blossoms awoke from their winter sleep.

Would you tell me to do the same? Georg wondered, reaching for his coffee cup with his left hand. He couldn't quite let that little whistle go for the time. "I don't think I've done well, Agathe. I know what you asked me to do, but I'm here, or in Salzburg, or hiding from them in our home. There's still too much of you when I look at them." He'd forgotten it was empty, just a mouthful of dregs left at the bottom, gritty and acrid. "And there's nothing of you here, or with...her."

Why do I keep thinking of her?

Mornings did not agree with Elsa Schräder, they never had. Not when she was a child—first her nurse, then her governess begging her to come out of bed—or a young woman, happier to sleep a little later as the morning wore on. There hadn't been anything to worry about through those morning hours even when she was newly married, still a little shy and uncertain about what it meant to be a wife. After all, her husband's hands rarely ever grazed her body as the evenings slipped away into the night, just the time and place where the maids in her father's house had whispered behind their hands that he would ravage her endlessly. Only for that expectation to be turned on its head.

He hadn't been anyone special, Hans, an older man holding more than a small fortune, a man and a marriage to secure her life as it went on, her own parents' money dwindling as the years wound on. But that had made everything easier, in the end, and at least he had been more interested in the young men at his club rather than the help roaming the halls of the townhouse she still called home. (And he couldn't begrudge her a night or two every now and then with someone who saw to her needs far more thoroughly.) At least no one knew to question him through all those years; after all, more than one couple like them didn't quite manage even a single child. Most days, Elsa didn't understand how Agathe and Georg had managed seven in hardly more than so many years. Had her friend never wanted a little peace and quiet in her body and home? How she could prefer the constant torment of babies and birth...God, it all sounded so miserable.

At the table in the salon, her red dressing gown still on her shoulders over her white silk nightdress, Elsa took another sip of the steaming coffee the cook had prepared for her and Georg this morning; or rather, the coffee the cook had brewed after the remainder of the first had long ago gone cold and bitter in the cafetière she had found on the table when she took her seat. Even so many years after the navy was dismantled and merely a relic of history—so many years after rising with the dawn was no longer necessary—apparently it was a habit Georg still couldn't quite break. She'd felt him move early this morning, leaving her bed well before the first rays of sunshine should have awakened him. His nightclothes and dressing gown were already gone—likely folded and returned to the drawer she had cleared for him when she sent the telegram Monday afternoon—one of the suits he had brought in his valise missing, along with a white shirt her maids had hung for him and a tie as well.

Is he outside? she wondered, yet another mouthful of coffee gently burning her tongue. He must have disappeared quietly if they didn't even know to take his cup. The cold never seems to bother him. Years on a submarine? I suppose he'll tell me some day. But as she drew the linen dressing gown tighter around her waist, Elsa just worried about the coffee in her hand.

It was only a few minutes before she heard the heavy footsteps in the hallway, the smell of smoke wafting into the salon over the aroma of the coffee that was slowly disappearing from her small cup. Well, you had to come back in eventually, Georg.

He was almost smiling as he pulled back his chair, letting loose the bottom button of his suit coat as he took his seat. It would only be a minute or two before one of the maids hurried back—the door to the back garden had closed rather sharply—and another pot of coffee appeared before them. This is a different look, darling, not since you've been here like this.

Indeed, it was only a matter of minutes before one of the girls in a black dress and white apron passed by the door, suddenly hurrying away to the kitchen. And then only another few minutes before a fresh pot of coffee and cup appeared for him. "Your staff know exactly what you want of them," he muttered, a new sip scalding his mouth, a small grin hiding behind the cup. "Unlike...some people." I don't quite know why you wouldn't leave me alone, only that you wouldn't, Maria. It doesn't make any sense.

Elsa frowned. "Some people?"

Georg nodded, so slight, Elsa hardly saw it. "Just when you least expect it."

She leaned forward, setting her little cup on the wooden table. You do talk in riddles sometimes, Georg. "Is that why you're in Vienna for the week?"

"No—"

"Then I'm afraid I don't understand, darling," Elsa murmured, settling back into her chair.

He let out a slow breath. "I don't know if I do."

You're back in Aigen, aren't you? Elsa thought, uncrossing her legs and settling both slippered feet on the patterned rug. "What happened, Georg?"

"Happened?"

"You haven't been here for...nearly a month, I think, when I'd rather you be here for that long."

"That's a lot to ask with seven children at home."

Elsa shook her head, the long curls draped over her shoulder after a quick comb through once her nightdress and dressing gown were finally over her shoulders again, like they were the night before for...a short while. "You haven't said a word about them since you got here—"

"I was slightly distracted."

"Or the last time you knocked on my door."

Georg took another sip of coffee, reaching for the shining cafetière between them and adding another healthy dose of the black brew to his own cup. "Beyond school, I'm sure there's nothing more than when...she last wrote to you."

"That's quite a long time for children."

"And how would you know?" Georg jerked his head upwards, still remembering all the bedrooms on the second floor where the family lived, just as his own home in Aigen separated the staff. Most here were empty, just a few rooms set aside for guests—perhaps a few years ago, one for a man like himself—and the most senior members of the household. Not a child in sight, roaming the halls: crushing little footprints into the plush carpet or smearing tiny handprints into the wallpaper. God, some days, he missed it so much he could hardly stand it.

"I was a child once, almost as long ago as you."

Another sip, another burn down his throat. "Sometimes it feels like a lifetime for them, everything that's happened. Sometimes just day."

Elsa swallowed as her fingers twitched; Georg had certainly had his first taste of a cigarette before she rose from bed—the scent had come in with him—and now she was craving her own, at least something to soothe the past and present twisting together in hr own mind. "You're just confused, I think," she finally managed.

His face came right back to hers, eyes narrowed and mouth twisted into a frown. "And how would you know that either?"

Just as Georg had a few moments before, Elsa filled her own coffee cup. "You're dwelling on it like you always do over things you don't like." Again with a sip, the fresh pour mixing with the more tepid coffee she had almost consumed. "But a few minutes ago, well...You've never been like that, since Agathe—"

"Please don't say it," Georg hissed as he slid his chair back. "You know I can't hear it."

Elsa reached across the table, catching his larger hand with her polished nails, just like last evening. She squinted as she peered down: there was already a chip in one, sooner than she expected. Was it already time to have them looked after? "It's been—"

"Don't—"

"It's been five months, Georg? You have to let her—"

"And especially not that!" he snapped.

"I'm only trying to help you—"

"Quiet."

I suppose that was one step too far, Elsa thought with another sip of coffee as she drew her hands back. You know I loved Agathe as a friend, but someday, you'll have to let someone else into your life. But I don't quite know how to make you understand that right now. As she turned her coffee up for another taste, Elsa frowned. Really, she should have had her nails looked after right as she sent Georg that telegram.

Georg finally set his cup down, his hands now folded on the table. They were so tightly knotted together, the square jewel on his signet ring turned in and cutting against his left ring finger, but the other...It was so strange, not feeling his wedding band. Twisting it whenever he worried as Agathe's coughs worsened—whenever the children looked at him over the dinner table those rare evenings he forgot to arrange a tray for himself in his study—whenever he wasn't in Salzburg. But after wrenching it off Saturday night as the blood dripped along his palm, it had lain in the top drawer of his desk, all the blood dried and probably blackened as it tarnished the gold. Have you let me go for a little while?

He glanced up from the table and his cup. She was staring at her nails; Georg hadn't even noticed the polish last night, too consumed to be distracted from..."My apologies," he whispered, bringing Elsa's eyes back to him. "That was...wrong of me."

"You still haven't said what happened, why—"

"She's...just so odd. I can't imagine her at one of your gay parties, champagne to hand wherever you look."

"She always enjoyed them when she wasn't expecting one of your children—"

"That's not what I meant, Elsa!" Georg let out a long breath. "And again, I apologize."

"Then what, or...who?"

"A new...friend, that's all."

Elsa swallowed a quiet growl just as her stomach gnawed at her insides. It's hardly been a month since you were last here, darling, what could have changed so much? "You don't sound all that happy about her."

"And don't say that, either!"

She reached for his hands again, clawing them apart before tugging one toward her. She bit her lip as she winced, the stone on his signet ring almost cutting into her palm; how much of a mark would be left in her skin? "There's no need to be so defensive, darling."

He released another sigh. God, she really doesn't understand. "I know and again, I apologize."

Elsa released his hand, already feeling his fingers twitching in her grasp. He was anxious, she had known him long enough to realize that, even if it was only when he and Agathe were in Vienna and worried over one of the children with their nurse in Salzburg. And he won't want to say anything. "Really, Georg, what is it?"

He shoved his chair back, not caring about the marks the legs must have left in the ornate rug, just reaching for his coffee one more time. You might be upset with me for this, too. "Forgive me, Elsa, I think I need another few minutes of fresh air."

She tugged a long lock of hair over her shoulder, just staring into her coffee as stepped through the door, down the corridor to the back garden. "As you will," she murmured, finally turning her hand up. The square jewel had left a white mark in the middle of her palm, already fading fast as she filled her cup again. At least there might be time for her own cigarette while Georg took a few minutes to collect his thoughts.

Is it your eyes? Georg asked himself as he gulped back another mouthful of mercifully fresh coffee. But it was already cooling rapidly in the chilly morning air. There wasn't a cloud in the sky that he could see from the back garden of Elsa's townhouse, nothing to hold the little warmth of winter in, even with the heat of the city all around. Fifteen, twenty years ago, he might have worried over a storm preparing to rage whenever the submarine surfaced, though maybe that was better, the waves and sea doing his work for him as they threatened to upend Allied destroyers and battleships.

"It's probably only another snowstorm," he added to himself, taking another sip of coffee as his left hand dove into his pocket. His fingers ran along those familiar curves again—over the mouthpiece he had never put to his lips, never used when barking out orders to sailors under his command—finally the front surface where those simple words were engraved. "Nothing that means anything."

Along the garden paths behind Elsa's townhouse—the house to the east was at least one floor taller, the ones to the west and behind the same height—Georg took a seat on one of the stone benches. One final moment before the skies opened with another avalanche of snow? Perhaps. "Why do I think you would like it, just..."

He needed another sip of coffee, the final dregs again rough and bitter at the bottom of his cup, a final mound waiting to be gulped back. You love the snow, too, don't you? You must if you chose Salzburg and all its mountains. He let out another sigh, peering up to the sky again. You'll be there again, I know you will.

"You wouldn't stop telling me what I should do. You must know I could be your father, Maria, especially after Sunday in the light of day." All the faint lines already etched across his skin were no longer hidden by an evening afternoon, somehow not troubling her just as they hadn't Agathe, even when all the mouths in Salzburg still whispered about the two of them behind their hands. The young woman with the naval captain temporarily returned from sea, somehow finding a wife rather than mere pleasure. ("Is she a trophy? She's barely more than a girl, no matter how pretty she is!" "How should I know?")

"Are you a rare bird as well? I think you might be." Turning his cup up one last time, Georg downed the last gritty dregs of coffee. "Either way, I intend to know."

* This is not a good way to prevent pregnancy; it might lessen the chances, but it does not properly eliminate them. Sorry, always bothers me to see it presented as anything else.