Chapter 9: "I apologize."

One week later

The minutes were still ticking away on his watch; in his flat, Georg might have heard the movement of even the second hand, every little click as the gears spun echoing through the emptiness, but the din of the street buried it. He turned his wrist over, glancing at the pearly white face: ten minutes until noon. You say you're late for everything, Maria, he thought, his fingers tapping against his thigh, his back flush against the stone that encased the iron gates to the gardens. But you've never been late for this, have you?

Her face had haunted him the entire week, drawn and pale even in the afternoon sun, fingers nearly shaking as he pressed a few schillings into her gloved palm. He still didn't quite now how much he had forced her to take, only that it was more than enough. Even through her leather gloves—thinner than any pair should be for a Salzburg winter—he thought he had felt a chill coming down her arm. Really, it was the worst thing he could have done, then, walking away from her, even if he had left her with enough money to last her a few days, probably even longer if her slightly haphazard weekday dresses were to be believed.

Christ, what had gotten hold of him? He might know her name, a little bit of her past and life—bought and paid for with his own in return, it sometimes seemed—but they really were still strangers...weren't they? Why should he care that she had talked to another man? A man who was only a neighbor, and probably younger than him: far closer to her age, no doubt, without a lifetime of grief weighing on his shoulders. He only knew that he did.

His heart was racing as he licked his lips, a new craving for a cigarette burning in his throat and on his tongue. Georg looked at his watch again, no glove covering half the face this week: eight minutes to noon. Tucking his hand beneath his lapel—the weather this morning almost too warm for a woolen winter coat as afternoon approached—Georg winced as he reached into his suit coat's pocket. Nothing, empty and bare.

He had known it would be, but his fingers still scrabbled against the smooth silk lining. It wasn't there today, unlike every other day, even last Sunday. Dressing this morning...well, it was like every morning to start: the same black suit, crisp white shirt, and black tie knotted right at the base of his throat, the dark linen twisted into place without even a glance to the mirror over his washroom sink. But before he tossed his suit coat over his shoulders, Georg had turned to the table beside his bed, the sheets and blanket thrown messily up toward the pillows. At the villa, whenever he managed to endure the sights and sounds of what he supposed was still his home, the maids tended to his quarters, tidying everything when he finally found the courage to face the day. (The children saw to their own rooms, at least for the most part. He refused for them to grow up with no idea of how to look after themselves; even entering the navy with a leg up on the common enlisted sailors, Georg had received a thorough education in that himself after a childhood of leaving everything for the household staff. From his mussed bedclothes to his shirt and jacket and short pants from the evening before.) It was right where he had left it as he undressed for bed, the chain mounded where he had dropped it, where it always lay at his side.

He had spun that whistle between his fingers, over one onto another as he sat in the rough wooden chair in his front room, beside the gramophone and the needle that had never touched a record, staring at the far wall. He picked out a stain here—a chip in the molding there—but still never a single photograph or painting collecting the dust of memories. Every day he spent in Salzburg, even if only for a meal or to wander the streets and lose himself in the noise and crowds, that steel whistle was always nestled in his pocket, a little memory he couldn't quite leave behind. Even when he drove the dreaded winding roads from the city proper to Aigen, all the dust kicked up against the windshield, it came with him, though it only dragged the past and the darkness back to Salzburg when he fled anew. Georg lost track of the time as he stared at it, the metal gleaming in the morning sunlight...and finally slammed it down beside the ashtray and snifter of brandy that always sat beside him to drown out the world. You can't come with me, not today.

Another glance at his watch: seven minutes to noon. God, there must have been enough time for one cigarette, just one to steady his nerves— Nerves? he thought, standing straighter as the word echoed through his head. She's hardly more than a girl, you've told her and yourself that more than once. You might as well be wary of Liesl.

His eyes darted through the people milling through the street, looking for the dark coat buttoned to her waist over what he knew must be her best dress. Your Sunday best, he thought, biting back a harsh laugh. I can't say I've worried over wearing anything like that for months—

Was that...no, he dismissed the unknown woman half a block away quickly. Dark brown hair and a waist rather too wide beneath that coat. Another peek: six minutes. Will this be the first time you're late for this? I can't imagine you will be. His eyes still sifted through the men and women cluttering the street, catching a glimpse of someone here and there. But his gaze was always answered by disappointment sinking in his stomach when he realized the muddled face capturing his attention couldn't possibly have those bright blue eyes peering out from beneath the fair hair he remembered so well. Each time he saw her, her eyes were seared into his memory a little more clearly—

No, there she was, a few yards down the street. dodging between the men and women around her, shoving something into one of her coat pockets. The top two or three buttons of that coat hung loose in the warming afternoon, just visible beneath the ends of her scarf, and the closer she came—not quite running, but walking quicker than Georg thought she might like—he could see it was the same dress he remembered from the past two weeks. Dark, some sort of deep blue, he decided, almost smiling as she reached around her neck. Struggling to tighten the knot of long hair she seemed to always wear on these Sunday afternoons? If he was honest, Georg preferred it spilling over her shoulder in that messy plait— Preferred? Only if you prefer her flat on her back on a dark road as well.

As she came closer, her eyes on the road, she was tugging on her coat's bottom hem, dragging it down over her waist and hips. Her chest rose and fell beneath the heavier fabric, calming as she slowed, wiping one hand across her forehead. He wanted to laugh again, though this time, he was amused. One final look at his watch: four minutes until noon, but she was only a few feet from him when her gaze at last came up. "What's the hurry, Fräulein? You've still a few minutes before you're tardy this time."

Those blue eyes were wide for a moment, cheeks newly flushed: not with exertion, but...embarrassment? "Georg?" she said quietly, straightening the closure of her pocket with one hand, the other still probably twisting at that knot of hair. "I'm surprised to see you here this early."

"You still had a few minutes to spare before you would be late."

Her hand hand shifted from her pocket to the bottom hem of her sleeve, fingers curling around the seam. "Yes, but...oh, this is the only day I'm usually on time for everything."

At least there's some color on her face, and it's not just her blushing. She is lovely with the pink on...Damn her, how had she wormed her way so deeply into his mind over the course of just a few days. Weeks, Georg reminded himself as he licked his lips again. It might really just be a few days, but she's been haunting you for longer, you know that. "Well," he began, pushing himself from the stone pillar and allowing himself a few steps toward her, "after you talked so much about being late last week, I supposed I shouldn't be, this time."

"It's no bother to wait a few minutes." There were the twists and turns in her stomach again, always hiding just a moment away whenever she stood beside him—even when she thought of Georg."It's a lovely place, even if...if I do have to wait here for you." It's so silly, Maria, she told herself, her eyes raking across his face, finding those little lines on his cheeks and the faint grey at his temple again. She still wasn't used to seeing him in bright daylight, though it was silly to think that at all. It had only been twice that she had met him as the dusk was turning into night—crashed into him, if she was honest, and he would surely remind her of that—just as it had been twice here, under the sun. (And really, these afternoons were for much longer than the moments it took him to drag her to her feet.) "It's nice enough to look down the path."

"Perhaps when spring begins. But, Fräulein?"

"Yes?"

"Last week, right here." Another step toward her; Georg was now close enough, he could snatch her hand or arm up if he wanted. Almost like last week. "I...behaved badly."

Maria swallowed, those little flutters growing in her stomach suddenly rising into her throat, almost nerves. "Please don't—"

"I apologize."

"But you were very kind," she murmured, her right hand finally dropping from the hair tied back at the base of her head. It was no use, she knew that well. At many a midday, when her students vanished into the streets for lunch around a kitchen table with their mothers and siblings, she had to let the loosening knot out, combing her fingers through the locks that were already feathering anew at the ends. At least with her own break to devour whatever she had managed to throw into her worn bag alongside any papers or tests, she had enough time to pull the twists of hair tight before pulling the band around to hold it all in place. I hope he doesn't notice. Her cheeks had colored as she rushed from mass, desperate to be on time, but it had faded as she slowed with her last turn of the corner. At least he'll think that's all it—

A rough laugh broke from Georg, bringing Maria back from her classroom and embarrassed imagination to the crowded street and the gentle breeze wafting along, a little warmer than the wind had been the last few weeks. "Is that funny?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest, one of her coat buttons crushed against her arm.

"I don't think I want to know how you grew up, if you thought I was kind."

"What does that mean?"

Georg sighed; he wasn't used to this sort of apology anymore. At least the only other people in the world who could accuse him of being unkind were the only people he couldn't face—or were beyond his reach, only tangled up in his memory now. It must have been five or so months before Gretl finally wound her way into the world, Agathe begging him not to leave for Vienna—not even for the two days and nights he needed to look after a few accounts and investments. "Something's wrong," she had insisted, almost clinging to him even as he clapped his hat atop his head, not even bothering to set it askew, the way she preferred it. "Please don't go." Nothing had gone wrong, in the end—not even the roads had worn a fresh coat of snow as he made the final turns to the house—but she had been shivering in their bed, buried beneath the sheets and a new pile of quilts. Hours of whispered apologies over the days that followed weren't enough, not as he considered the what ifs and possibilities even after his wife and the unborn child destined to be their last were well again. He hardly left her side after that, even as the fever intensified, always refusing to break—

No, not here, Georg told himself, the late winter air reminding himself where he was—and with whom. "A kinder man wouldn't have left you alone when you could hardly stand up straight." You can't be here—I left you in the flat this morning! But you would never forgive me, if you knew.

"It wasn't like that—"

"Wasn't it?"

"No—"

"I told you exactly what I saw—"

"But you're here now," Maria said, chancing a step of her own toward him. "You were upset last week—I don't really understand why—"

"Don't you?" Georg asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Well…" The flush burned darker across her face; no more pretending it was from her rushed walk, Maria supposed. Even later last Sunday afternoon, back in her room with her students' papers—her stomach had finally found a little peace after devouring a plate of buttered noodles at the first café she saw, nearly ordering a second before she remembered herself—something was already taut in her chest, almost uncomfortable. She'd hardly said a word to Georg about...Lukas, Luca? She hadn't even bothered to think about him the entire week long. Does it matter at all? But everything shifted in that one moment: his hand folded into her elbow to steady her had vanished, transforming almost into a vice when he finally grasped her hand, pulling her forward almost faster than she could manage. You didn't like me just mentioning him, even I'm not so young that I didn't see that. "At least a little."

You brought it right to the surface, Maria, Georg thought, his fingers still rapping against his thigh. You don't mean to, I'm certain, but you do, and so easily.

"But you came back today to…"

As she paused, her hand rubbing at the base of her neck again, Georg hissed, "To what, Maria?"

She brought her hand up to her mouth, chewing on her thumb for a moment. "To talk with me again."

He nodded, wishing she would move her hand from her face. If I told you were lovely, would you blush again, unlike all the women who would gladly cling to me in Vienna? "I did tell you, I think I enjoy talking with you, even if I don't quite know why." He had to stop, his hand rising from his leg and slipping beneath his winter coat—into his suit—searching in vain for...everything. The curves of the body, the links in the chain, all still pristine. Not a wedding present, but Liesl had appeared so soon, it might as well have been. "It did happen so quickly, didn't it," he murmured. Georg could hardly hear his own words; it must sound like only mumbling to Maria. "We'd hardly exchanged vows before...even though I had to leave—"

"Georg?" Her bright voice brought him back the Salzburg street, a little more crowded than when he arrived fifteen, twenty minutes earlier. The dew and lingering mist of the morning fading into the warmer afternoon. He glanced back to her, blue eyes narrowed as she peered at him. "Did you say something?"

Christ, learn to bite your tongue! "Don't worry about it," he said, yanking his hand from his empty pocket, taking one last step toward her. She didn't move, didn't even look away. Even on his first submarine—his first command after leaving the naval academy and receiving his commission—the youngest sailors had flinched when he stood this close as he struggled not to blink, to break that stare for the briefest moment. Someone did train you well, Maria, or at least he must have thought so. "But I hope you'll let me make it up to you."

Her other hand came away from her face. "What?"

"Last Sunday. I think I owe you a proper lunch, not just a handful of schillings so you can buy yourself something."

Without her palm against her mouth, there was once again no hiding the color blooming on her face. "There's no need—"

"That isn't what I'm asking you, Maria," he said, his palm just grazing her the curve at the base of her back, turning her around to the way she had just come. He didn't miss her little shiver, even through her coat and the same dark dress. You really do wear your heart on your sleeve, don't you? "If you've just come from mass, I'm sure you haven't eaten anything today but a little wafer and a small sip of that vile wine."

Her face snapped back to him, the dark circles he recalled from the previous week well faded, now just a tinge of blue and grey, the same he remembered even those mornings when none of their children demanded her attention through the night— The anger was already brewing in his chest, and Georg gulped down a deep breath, his fingers almost clenched in the loose folds of her heavy coat.

"...be you could use a little of that yourself."

Her voice cut through the tightness growing under his ribs, drawing him away from Aigen and all its rank memories—back to Salzburg and the busy street...and her. His distraction. "I'm sorry...Maria," he said quietly. "I was...What did you say?"

"Just that you might need a little of that at church yourself." Tugging her coat from his fingers, she turned to him, the little smile she had had for him at first now gone, a faint frown on her lips. Pink, a little plump from the breeze despite the warming afternoon, tempting..."Georg?"

"That's neither here nor there." Now at her side, he took the first steps down the street with her. A few of the men and women walking in the opposite direction darted around them, as though his harsh face almost...frightened them away. Georg saw it in the mirror each morning as the shaved the faint beard that always sprouted through the night, the scratchy hairs subdued by his shaving soap and razor. His skin was always drawn and tight, new lines making their way across his cheeks faster than even a year ago. You wouldn't recognize me, would you, love?

But it doesn't bother you, does it, Maria? Georg thought, another glance down at her. She was keeping pace with him along the cobblestone, though surely taking three steps for every two of his own.Not even that first night. He clenched both hands, fingers twitching again, though whether eager for a cigarette or to reach for her hand as he had last Sunday..."Just come along with me, before we can't find a table for an hour."


Maria was uncomfortable, sitting across the small table from Georg. He had been right when he first told her to come with him: every café they passed was crowded, one or two with a few men clustered at the door. Any woman she saw clung to a man's arm. She wasn't certain what he was searching for, hardly even glancing to the small lines before walking on, once or twice reaching for her hand to draw her along with him. But only for a moment; each time, he released her fingers as soon as they had passed the crowd.

Despite the warming afternoon outside, there had still been enough of a snap to the air for Maria to be thankful for her coat and gloves. But with the tables cramped together, the heat was rising and her coat suddenly stifling. She loosed her scarf a little at first, the warmth around her neck dissipating for a moment before the heat of the café took its place. It wasn't the crowd, either; after all, the other people already dining were in their own small world, just like she and Georg were— No, Maria told herself, sliding her scarf from around her neck and tangling it in her lap. Her gloves soon followed, caught along with the ends of her scarf between her thighs as she squirmed in the chair. They probably know each other—really know each other, not like us.

It was the menu between them; the clean white cloth spread over top and hanging over the edge, almost brushing the top of her dress, not a wrinkle in sight; the empty glasses, spotless and without a single chip; the ashtray, clean and empty. I don't belong here, she thought, loosening the last of the buttons on her winter coat. It was too hot to wear, now, and the last of the buttons almost pinched her waist. I've never belonged here. Apart from her lunch the prior Sunday when she knew she ate almost like a starving animal, Maria couldn't quite remember the last time she had been to a café. She could afford to feed herself with what she found at the greengrocer's—even then, seeking out what someone better off might turn a nose up at—and at the weekly market whenever she could escape from her classroom early enough. But much more…

Even in her uncle's house, a meal out almost never happened. Between his tightness with his coins and banknotes and the scowl he had for her whenever she wasn't avoiding his hands, he had never been one to offer her a treat like that. Rarely his wife, either—

"Maria?" Her eyes rose from the table, back from her momentary trip to Vienna. You're here, not there. Don't let him take you back there. "You look as though you're miles away."

"No," she said softly, dragging one arm then the other from her coat before shrugging it from her shoulders onto the back of her chair. Even the chair was something she wasn't used to in her life, especially now: cushioned rather rough wood gouged by one tenant or another who had rented the room before her. "I…" Georg had done the same as her, shedding his overcoat with the warmth in the room, now in his suit, white shirt, and tie, the black suit jacket still half-buttoned.

She had never seen him quite like this, Maria realized. Whether it was those first evenings in near darkness—the embarrassment still turned her stomach, sometimes, when she remembered how he must have first seen her—or these last weeks in clear daylight, he had always been bundled into a heavy winter coat. This morning was the first it hadn't been fastened to the very top, just like her own. It had always masked the breadth of his shoulders, the swell of his torso—probably muscles beneath…

"Well, wherever you were, it has you blushing now." Maria pressed one hand to her cheek, almost feeling the flames under her palm.

Oh, why can't you keep anything to yourself! "It's not that."

"Then what?" Georg asked, his hand already in the inner coat of his suit. The other pocket, the one he hadn't left empty this morning. His bronze lighter in his fingers, he caught the back end of a cigarette between his lips before he clicked the wheel twice, the sparks failing to ignite the tip the first time.

The color was fading from her cheeks, Maria felt, and she dropped her hand into her lap. "I'm not used to...this."

His eyes narrowed as he dropped the lighter onto the tablecloth, just now noticing one or two small dark marks in the coarse cotton. "It's only a café."

"Yes, but it's not something I can...I mean, I don't remember the last time I was—well, that is—"

"After last week, you don't have say anything more." A cloud of grey smoke rose between them as Georg exhaled, hiding her from him for a moment. She wrinkled her nose. "It's not something you can afford."

Now the red was back on her cheeks, though Maria prayed it was fainter than before. "Yes," she whispered. Oh, at least she had what was left in her pocket! "But, Georg, I need to ask you, about last week—"

"Later," he said ahead of another mouthful of smoke, releasing it again just as a waiter stopped by their table.

Georg didn't wait for her to comment on the menu, asking the waiter for water and a pair of tartines before offering the menu to the man, who just nodded. Maria didn't miss the quick glance down at her before his eyes flicked back to Georg, though he didn't appear to notice anything. At least it's somewhere simple, she thought, the waiter returning with water and a handful of flatware, dropping a knife and fork in front of either of them with a clatter. I don't know what I would do if it was something more.

The haze was growing, both from Georg's cigarette and the still smoldering ash in the ceramic dish between them. Maria choked back a cough as the smoke flooded her nose; it had been years since she had been around so much of it, not since leaving Vienna and...She sat a little straighter, her chair's legs scraping against the floor as she dragged it closer to the table and reached for her water. At least that cleared some of what was already coating her mouth.

Her gaze rose from the tablecloth and the flatware, her free hand straightening the pair that had been set before her. Georg's bright blue eyes were still crisp even through the haze, his fingers hiding the lower half of his face. Are you smiling like you were that first Sunday? she wondered, her fingers a little tighter on her glass.

"He asked you because you don't have a mother or father to ask. You told him just as much." The flush on her face hadn't had a chance to disappear, perhaps he wouldn't notice it behind her glass! Is this what you meant, Johanna? Even the waiter hadn't been able to hide his curiosity; was he wondering? After all, she was hardly grown and Georg was...Well, she didn't quite know how old he was—and if she was honest, she tried not to think on it too much. But even without the grey in his hair and faint lines etched into his skin, he must be well into his thirties at least to have served in the navy. I hadn't even thought about what it might look—

"You really need to learn to keep your thoughts to yourself, Maria."

She jerked in her chair, almost as if she had fallen back to earth from the clouds—or maybe the mountaintop. "I didn't say anything!"

He laughed, his hand and cigarette drifting from his face; now, at least, he was smiling, at least a little. You should more often, Georg. "You didn't need to." He paused for another draw on that cigarette. "Another time and place...You might have learned not to."

Leaning forward—her forearms perched on the edge of the table—she asked quietly, "What sort of—place do you mean?"

"Just…"

The dance might be done—another waltz beginning, almost the same as the one that had just finished—but Georg couldn't quite let her out of his grasp. She was so warm against his arm that was still wrapped around the curve of her back, her dark eyes darting away from his gaze. She must have felt him drawing her a little closer, a little nearer than her parents and guardian might prefer, already wanting to feel her pressed to his chest. And there they were again, her eyes: deep brown, peering right into his own, biting back the smile blooming on her lips.

"Georg?"

You knew I couldn't, but you wanted it as much. You didn't even allow yourself to—

"Georg?"

The cigarette clutched between his fingers was already burning low, he had drawn so many deep breaths. It was warming his skin and lips as the long ago ballroom faded, replaced by the din of the café: the chatter, the clink of knives and forks and spoons against ceramic, even the rumble of cars on the street outside. And Maria, just across from him. "I hope you never have to learn," he whispered as he discarded the cigarette, crushing the smoldering embers into the already grey and black debris in the ashtray.

"It can't be that bad, whatever you're remembering."

He snorted, leaning back as a different waiter stopped beside their table, identical plates in either hand. "Would you say the same for yourself?"

"That's not—"

"Just eat, Maria, at least for a little while. You can launch more questions later."

It was a few minutes of silence between them, just their own flatware adding to the noise wafting around the café's dining room. It was good, Maria had to admit, some sort of meat spread across thick slices of bread, two for each of them. At least I'm used to an open sandwich, she thought, wiping a crumb from the corner of her mouth. But I think I'd rather just pick it up myself.

"I hope this is a little better than your lunch last Sunday."

"Oh, yes!" Maria swallowed the final remnants of her last bite before another sip of water. At least he didn't seem to notice, she told herself, propping her knife on the edge of her plate. "It's nice not to eat alone, for once."

"Yes." Georg continued to busy himself with his food, his first tartine already gone. It had been months, really, months since he had sat across a table from anyone for a meal, apart from the evenings banished to the villa in Aigen when he occasionally forgot the children's bedtime. It was the older girls, especially, always eager to see him—embrace him—despite the quiet that always fell after the first few minutes like a storm cloud from the west. At least then, it was tolerable. For a time. He took another bite. All the more reason to appease Frau Schmidt and finally hire a governess. And more time...He chanced another glance at Maria, just catching her eyes before they wandered to the window for a moment. More time with you.

O O O

Frau Schmidt was already waving the smoke away from her face when Georg glanced up from his desk, the housekeeper's lined face veiled by the haze. Passing just a day and a night and a final morning at the villa was trying—exhausting, really—even when he rarely ventured from his study or personal quarters unless the children were in class or bed. He was scarcely...home, his mind already turning back to Salzburg. But the accounts always demanded his attention. Whether it was the end of the week or the end of the month, there was always a stack.

"What is it?" he asked, a fresh dollop of ash tumbling into the ashtray tucked into the corner of his mahogany desk.

The housekeeper cleared her throat, a cough catching behind her hand. "Have you taken any time to look at the resumes I collected for you to review?"

Georg took another deep drag from the damp end of his cigarette, his teeth nearly cutting it open. "You asked me the same last night."

Her hand was twisted in the edge of her skirt and apron. Steadying yourself? he wondered. "Captain, I understand things are still difficult for you—"

"Do you?"

She nodded, her eyes suddenly on the windows behind him as she blinked heavily, and certainly not against the sunlight blossoming against the other side of the villa. "I do, Captain. You know that."

She must have intended it, Georg knew, the guilt blossoming beneath his ribcage. He had hardly been back from the navy then, it seemed, after so many years both above and below the waves. Really, it must have been at least a few. Liesl had still easy to swing up into his arms and...Agathe's abdomen had just began to swell heavily with Friedrich when the middle-aged housekeeper found herself consumed with her own mourning and grief. Though she still went about her duties after her few weeks of leave to organize the funeral and console her own children, her eyes were always red and puffy, her fist scrubbing the tears away from the corners whenever she thought no one was looking her way.

"But even with Frau Bauer to look after Marta and Gretl, it's becoming too much. Looking after the children while seeing to the house. You've said before you want someone to mind the children and nothing else. I didn't post the advertisement until you told me you wanted a governess."

He sighed, almost collapsing against the back of his chair. There was no escaping her this time. "Frau Schmidt—"

"I'm past the time of my life I can run after children. Franz as well. Please, Captain, it won't be that much time—"

"I won't be able to this afternoon." His thoughts were already gone—long gone—back to Salzburg. Vienna and Elsa...his mind rarely turned there any longer, fascinated and nearly transfixed by the young girl he couldn't strike from his mind.

"But—"

Georg swallowed a cough, the smoke finally scratching at his throat. "Decide on whomever you want. I'll send the letter the next time I return." After all, I won't be here to order her about.

O O O

Turning back from the window, Maria dipped her fork tines into the pâté, the salty, savory spread melting on her tongue. Even with only a portion of her first tartine finished, her stomach was nearly full. It was almost what she ate many evenings once her papers were marked, but somehow it was sitting more heavily in her belly. "Georg?"

He looked up from his own plate. "Hmm?"

"Thank you, for this."

"Of course, Fräulein."

She took a breath, laying her fork down and folding her hands in her lap. "But...you have to let me ask you—you have to—about last week."

Georg sighed, abandoning his own flatware as well, taking another few sips from his glass of water before waving his hand toward her. "If you must."

"Did it really bother you that much, when I mentioned him?"

Falling back in his chair again, Georg's hand found its way back into his pocket, the end of a fresh cigarette between his fingers. "Maria—"

"I think I'm allowed to know. Everything changed, right then."

He had to thrust his hand into the other pocket, his fingers and cigarette tangled in the empty silk. A mistake, this morning, he knew now it was a mistake. You would give me the strength for it, he thought as he bit the cigarette between his lips and reached for the lighter he had left on the table. At least so long as I could stand it. And there came the burn again: soothing as it singed his throat.

Maria turned her face down, taking her flatware once more and cutting a new piece from her half-finished tartine. You won't answer anything you don't want. I know you well enough to be sure of that, even if I don't know much more. She chewed it slowly; the sooner lunch ended, the sooner the afternoon with him would as well. I still don't really understand why I want to spend this time with you. Swallowing her bite and chasing it with a sip of water, her eyes drifted to the window and the busy street outside.

There were no buses running along this road, she hadn't even seen a single sign for a stop for the whole of their short walk from the entrance of the gardens. Just cars in their place, maneuvering around the pedestrians. "Don't you ever wonder, Georg?" she asked, the question tumbling from her mouth before she could bite it back. Oh, you really can't keep anything to yourself.

"About what?"

She settled her flatware on her plate again; there was nothing else for it. "Them." She touched her finger to the glass for a second, still a little chilly in the mid-February afternoon despite the sunshine and the first signs of winter breaking.

Georg let out a fresh breath of smoke, peering out the window with her. "Why, do you?"

"Isn't it so interesting, wondering?"

He snorted as he tapped away the first dollop of greying embers into the ashtray. "I suppose you could, if you have nothing else to do."

"That's not what I meant," Maria said as she shook her head, her loosening hair still slapping the back of her neck. "Aren't you at all curious?"

Georg was gone as he filled his mouth with smoke again. Back beneath the Mediterranean waves—the Adriatic—the currents tossing the submarine under his command gently to and fro whenever they surfaced, sailors and mates and lieutenants all eager for their brief share of the salty ocean air when the hatch opened for those few precious moments. The sun during the day, the moon and stars whenever a velvety night was in bloom, not another light for miles to drown them out. "I've worried about…"

"Is something wrong?"

He shook his head. "I worried and wondered about enough sailors without adding strangers in the streets to the count."

Maria leaned forward, her arms across her chest, just catching the edge of the table. "But weren't we strangers?"

"It's not quite the same."

"Isn't it?"

The smoke between them was already gone, swirling up to the rough beams criss-crossing the ceiling. "No," he said. She couldn't quite realize it, Georg knew, her forearms just barely pushing her small breasts up, her Sunday best a little more fitted than either dress he had seen shoved halfway up her legs on a chilly evening. Looking your best for God? I'm not sure I prefer it to the way we first met.

"But why isn't—"

"So have it your way, Maria." He pointed out the window beside them, choosing one of the people walking along the street, Maria's gaze following his finger. "That woman." He couldn't see her face; she was far enough away that even without the wrap over her head, knotted beneath her chin, her features would have been a mystery. Older, he could tell that much, brown or black hair peeking beneath the dark green head scarf.Just walking here and there, like the rest of them. Their own troubles and sadness to worry over."What is she doing?"

"Well…" Maria wandered hither and yon, a little tale spinning as her imagination unleashed. "I suppose she went to mass earlier, just like I did. She's on her own, so I suppose her husband has passed away. I feel sorry for her, that must be terrible—"

"I'm sure it is—"

"—and she only has her children to look after her, like she looked after them—"

"Maria—"

"They worry about her, living alone in the house where she raised them. She doesn't quite know any of the neighbors, not since—oh, it must have been a tradesman, next door—"

"And they taught you to daydream like that in teacher's college?"

The color on her face was fainter, this time; Georg might not have even noticed, Maria told herself. "No. My foster mother tried to shout it out of me when I was still in her house."

"It worked well, I see."

She bit down on her lip, trying not to giggle. Somehow, Maria felt Georg didn't care to hear giggling. "I just learned to keep them to myself, after a while." Sometimes, whenever she caught a group of the little girls in her class whispering in a little cluster during a break in lessons—laughing together over something she couldn't hear—perhaps telling themselves the same sort of stories. "And every time my father sent me a postcard or something from his travels—you remember, don't you? I told you he was always here or there, somewhere outside of Austria."

"I do."

"She had to remind me to keep myself in Austria, rather than following him around the world."

Reaching for his glass, his fingers clenching it harder than he meant, Georg gulped down another mouthful of water. She hadn't meant anything by it—he told himself that as the back edge of the glass hit the tablecloth with a faint thud—but she might as well have lobbed an accusation. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

Maria turned her eyes back to her plate, slicing the last corner of her first tartine in half, skewering it with her fork and eating it rather faster than she had the entire meal. "It was just the way things were. It's almost all I remember."

The cigarette was only half burnt, but Georg stubbed it out in the ashtray anyway and gently flicked the moistened end to the far side. "It doesn't sound that you enjoyed it."

She shivered for a second as she swallowed before bringing the final piece of bread to her mouth. With a final look across the table, she shivered again. There was always something in his gaze, bright blue and so sharp, she sometimes wondered if he could hear everything before she had the nerve to say it. "Why...why are you asking me?"

"You don't like that, do you?"

"I try not to think about—"

"If you don't want to answer, then I'll ask you something else." The craving for something—something new from Maria—was rising again, stronger and sharper. "You can't possibly spend all your time in that classroom with those students who could be your younger siblings."

Her knife and fork on the edge of her plate, Maria slapped her hand against the table, her own glass shaking as Georg's eyes widened for a brief second. "You always say that. Why?"

That always sets you on edge, he thought, his attention returning to his own lunch and plate, already almost cleared. "Because you are that young, andI want to know more about you." He took another bite, the salty meat suddenly tasteless. But it's not all for you, Maria. You've already started your life—were forced into it, it seems—but you're barely older than my eldest child. And a man following after her, even in a few years…"Whether or not I should."

Maria crossed her arms again before leaning back into her chair. I won't look away, Georg, even if you do, not until you answer. "And someone else might say you're too old to ask me things like that."

"But you usually answer, and I'm used to having an answer when I ask questions."

"What do you…" Maria didn't quite know the rest of her question as her fingers began to twitch, rapping out some new rhythm against her elbow as her heart rate increased. All she could remember was the one from last Sunday as he forced her shaking fingers over that small bundle of schillings. "I mean, I wanted to ask you, after last week—"

"Later," Georg said, finally pushing his cleared plate toward the edge of the table where it might catch the waiter or a busser's eye.

"Is it something to do with when you were in the—"

"Later." God, she really was determined to sink her nails—claws!—deeper, almost as though she sensed some buried secret, like a bitch digging after a bone already gnawed clean before the dirt and muck swallowed it whole. He needed another cigarette before he could bear to listen to any of her questions again. As the smoke filled his throat—half hiding Maria and her discomfort at the scent for a moment—Georg finally said, "When you're not at your school—or at whatever concert you can afford at the weekend—what do you do?"

"Well…" Maria reached for her fork again, finally devouring the last corner of her first toast. She doubted she could manage even a mouthful of the second, the pâté suddenly too rich for her as she licked the remaining crumbs of bread from the tines. "If it's earlier in the evening, I play my guitar. Whenever it won't bother my neighbors, at least. Sometimes, I still wonder how I have it. When I left my uncle's house…"

"Yes?"

"I didn't have very much, when I came to him. I think I left with even less." So many of the postcards and books, the little treasures from all over the world...best not to wonder what her uncle had done with them, she had decided long ago. "Maybe it was too plain…"

"What?"

Maria took another sip of water, her mouth newly dry and cottony as she shoved Vienna back to the east. "It's not important. Please don't worry about it." She returned her glass to the table, her fingers moving again, as though the bumps and frets were already nipping the skin on her fingertips. "It was my father's. He had a lot of instruments, though I don't know if he could play them all." Any of them, she reminded herself. He never played any of them when I visited.

There's your unhappiness, Georg thought, following her gaze back to the window and the street for a moment. "You always seem to talk of your father, not really your mother. Why?"

He didn't miss the shudder as her hand fell still before she seized her water glass again, downing a larger gulp than a minute earlier. "She died when I was young."

Just like Marta and Gretl will say someday. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, suffocating his cigarette despite almost the entire thing still waiting to be inhaled. His second to youngest child had already forgotten her, or perhaps she had never truly known her at all.

One evening during his occasional banishment from Salzburg to Aigen, before Frau Bauer bundled her charges up to bed, Marta had darted into his study, her hair mussed and flying behind her after the day, pink and white silk ribbons now only half-tied. Running around the nursery—napping after her lunch settled—perching on her nurse's knee...Georg hadn't known and hadn't cared. For once, he hadn't snapped the door shut behind him—shut her in with him—something deep in his chest hoping that she would spin herself around and rush out just as suddenly as she had scurried in. Instead, her eyes had drifted across those photographs Georg couldn't bear to look at or part with: a happy, black and white and grey family peering back at her. Her pudgy fingers had grazed the glass, a little smudge left as they wandered across the past. "Papa," she had whispered with a little grin as her tiny hand touched his face. And then...confusion in her brown eyes, her mouth opening—closing again—as her finger found her mother and she turned back to him. "Papa?"

"You already said that." Maria's voice brought him back to Salzburg and the café, almost a cord pulling him across the fields and through the roads winding here and there.

"I know that well."

She finally pushed her plate away; anymore was too much. "I hardly remember her, I was such a small child." Though she sometimes still swallowed heavily when she recalled the little memories of her mother—fair hair over her shoulder, pale blue eyes following her when she ran around her parents' small apartment, the occasional swat across her backside when her thoughts ran ahead of her tongue—at least after so many years, there weren't any tears. "But can't I ask you the same thing?"

"You've already pointed out how old I am, Maria—"

"Only because you won't stop reminding me I'm too young to be a teacher!"

Georg let out a breath, his suit suddenly a little too tight and warm around his chest. He loosened the buttons, the lapels hanging freely from his shoulders. "If you insist." He rarely thought on those years anymore: the seaside and the salty breeze, afternoons with his brother and sister, an easier time than what awaited them all in the future. Perhaps it was all of it, a life of waiting and wondering...When and where and always how long until the end of all things? "I didn't have my father for very long, either. But unlike you, I had more time with my mother than my father."

One of the waiters was passing by, and Georg waved the young man over to the table. "Are you done, Maria?"

"Oh, yes!" she said, leaning back as the waiter lifted her half-finished plate away.

"Two coffees," Georg added, receiving a quick nod as a response. At least it brought their talk to a close, or at least a pause. He didn't know how much more he could stand, all the talk of parents and loss, even if they were both well acquainted with it all.

"Thank you," she said softly as the man vanished through the maze of tables. "I'm sorry, I don't always have much of an appetite."

"That doesn't surprise me, dar—" Georg bit his tongue. Darling. You'll never know, will you, love? Not if I can't stand to think of you. You'll never know—and she'll never know, will she? He coughed quietly before scratching a new itch at the base of his neck. A little washing powder left on his collar from the last time he had sent his clothes out to be laundered, he supposed, his fingers even tugging the starched front away from his throat. "It doesn't surprise me in the least.

Maria squirmed in her chair for a moment, her bare hands suddenly clammy. He had been about to say something else, she knew, she had almost heard it. "But...but you never answered my question."

One of his eyebrows rose. "I beg your pardon?"

"From a little while ago. Did it bother you last week? When I mentioned—my neighbor?"

Georg had turned it over in his mind more than a few times as he had stared around his flat over the last days. Just a few words about that younger man and something was already writhing in his chest. Envy, possession, something that couldn't let her even say a thing about someone else."Do I really need to answer?" I don't know if you would even understand my answer.

Maria's face was freshly burning, her gaze on her hands now folded in her lap again. "No," she whispered as she shook her head.

Georg leaned back, another busser with a lightly dampened cloth brushing away the small spray of crumbs in front of him before doing the same to Maria's half of the table, though his hand lingered a little longer in front of her. "And what of you, Maria?" He cleared his throat, and the young man hovering between them straightened, nodding briefly to Georg before he turned away.

Her gaze came up at his new question. "I'm sorry?"

Georg supposed she hadn't noticed a thing. "Does it bother you that it bothered me?"

The flush across her cheeks was even darker, and Maria's eyes were back in her lap, a few of her knuckles already white as she clenched her hands tighter. "I don't think so."


A/N: I really enjoy the band XTC, and I couldn't help think of "Frivolous Tonight", from Apple Venus, Vol. 1. Not their best album, but still nice, especially the first half.