Chapter 11: Till Then
Georg bit down a laugh as he leaned back into his chair, the top of the frame digging into the bottom of his shoulder blades despite the cushioned upholstery. A sudden sharp pain ran down his spine—a fresh reminder of how a man past forty needed more sleep, not less—and he cleared his throat before he had a chance to hiss. Across from him, her cheeks flaming still deeper red, Maria finally lifted her gaze, though her hands were still in her lap. She was looking away from him—looking at anyone but him—her eyes darting about the dining room. Over his shoulders, at the waiters and bussers with plates and flatware and fresh linens...Anywhere but him. "You're blushing," he said softly.
"Wouldn't you?" Maria said, a little louder than she meant, her eyes finally returning to him, her heart racing for a short moment as Georg leaned forward. He hadn't said anything, not really, Maria told herself that as she reached for her water glass, her mouth dry and scratchy. If the water had been cold when the waiter first poured it, now it was tepid, warming with the room around them. Or maybe I'm the one who's so warm, she thought, nearly gulping down every last drop that was left. The men and women at the tables around all seemed happy as ever, still talking between bites and sips.
"No, I don't think so. Not after answering a simple question."
Her glass on the white tablecloth again, just beside Georg's, Maria wished she hadn't shrugged her winter coat off her arms. Though her sleeves didn't taper and button until right at her wrists, she almost felt as though her dress was gone, only her chemise to hide her small frame from his eyes. He wasn't examining her—she told herself she was imagining it—but sometimes, she couldn't be sure. It was so strange, really, when she thought about it, squirming under his scrutiny. Whether it had been in the gardens on the paths winding through the barren flower beds and worn hedges or along the street walking here, Georg's pace sometimes a little faster than she could easily manage, she had always been closer to him than she was now.
And not only that, Maria reminded herself, swallowing against a scratchy patch right at the top of her throat. It hadn't just been her buttocks and shoulder left with bruises as souvenirs of their first two encounters. A few days after that second evening, already anticipating the coming Sunday more than she would admit to anyone but God, sponging away the last of the water and soapy film from her shower before she finally tugged her nightgown over her head and tossed back her bedclothes, she had noticed the mark across the top of her right breast. Nothing like what must have blossomed on her backside: sitting behind her desk while her students busied themselves with their grammar primers and latest mathematics lessons, Maria had struggled to sit without wincing each time she shifted. Whether reaching for a pencil to mark papers that had already been handed in or leaning down to scratch at an itch beneath the top of her thick socks that peeked above the top of her boots, there was always a dull ache beneath her skin. But that mark—oblong against one of her upper ribs before the swell of what few curves her body had, purple and grey in the center, tinged with brown and yellow at the edges—it wasn't exactly—
"Fräulein?" Maria almost jumped at Georg's voice, crashing back into the café, its noises and smells, the taste of salty meat and sour bread on her own tongue. It wasn't anything but an accident, she reminded herself as she slid forward, closer to the table, her fingers tapping away as her stomach twisted, suddenly a little too full despite half of her meal returning to the kitchen. "For a moment, I thought you'd left me."
"No," she said, shaking her head as she did.
"But do you understand, Maria?"
"I don't think I can answer, not if you won't just make it a simple question."
Georg scratched at the back of his neck, some of the hair at the base of his skull a little longer than he usually allowed. "It wasn't much of one," he said, the same stained fingers of his right hand beginning to twitch, the last rush of nicotine cut short. He had enjoyed far more cigarettes this morning than usual, but the cravings refused to be ignored. Not the only one, he told himself, his eyes continuing to follow Maria's gaze around the dining room, though it had slowed a little. You're still such a mystery, darling. He wrinkled his nose at the word, not even needing to hear it aloud for the bile to churn in his stomach. "But I will admit, it sounded quite simple to me."
If her blush had begun to fade at all, Maria felt her cheeks glowing again. Maybe he was right, that it was all rather simple. Georg had bristled at the first mention of her neighbor, that was all there was to it, admitting in his own small way that it had troubled him. Just another man—someone she had never met before that day—but he didn't seem to like him. Not a bit. And to ask her as simply and plainly if it troubled her that he didn't like it...Maria pressed one of her palms to her face, her fingers cupped over her cheek.
You're trying to hide it all again, Georg thought, his hand tucked back into his pocket, the top of his package of cigarettes opening with a moment of scrabbling against the paper packet. "Sometimes, I forget what we do to you."
Maria set her elbow on the edge of the table, still feeling the flush under her hand. "That's odd to say," she whispered, trying not to squirm. The bottom hem of her sleeve was sliding lower, tightening around her forearm.
Georg shook his head, cigarette finally between his fingers, his other hand clawing for the lighter beside the pair of water glasses that separated them. "Not at all. I might be a man—"
"Please don't."
This time, Georg allowed himself to laugh, finally catching his the cigarette between his lips and flicking the wheel on his bronze lighter. With a single breath drawn deep through the wrapped tobacco, the fingers of his left hand were calming, banishment of the endless withdrawal beginning. "You really do let your imagination get the best of you." The smoke from his nose already swirled in the shifting air, tossed here and there as staff and patrons strode between the tables and the door from the street snapped shut, bringing a wave of a crisp winter breeze into the restaurant. "No wonder your…"Who was it? "Foster mother tried to yell your imagination out of you. All I...if you'll let me finish?"
Maria nodded, her elbow sliding down from the edge of the table—a small dent she hadn't intended left behind in the tablecloth—her fingers knotted together in her lap again atop her dark knitted scarf. You know what they would all say, back in Vienna. "I'm sorry to have interrupted."
"As often as you do, that surprises me."
"It's what—they all tried to teach me."
Georg narrowed his eyes, following Maria's own as they fell back down, watching her fingers twist and turn, he supposed. Very well indeed, he thought, the first clump of ash falling from the very tip of his cigarette onto the white cloth beside a few other faint stains the laundry hadn't quite defeated. "There have been enough women in my life—my mother, my sister, my…" The burn was in his chest again, far beyond what the American tobacco could reach. They haunted him when he least expected them: her dark hair and eyes, the voice that was always gentle...Not here or now, not today. He blinked heavily, another gulp of smoke from his cigarette flooding his throat and nose, almost sending his head spinning as as the light washed over him again. Maria was peering at him again, her right hand tugging at the bun of hair hidden at the back of her head. "What is it?" she asked softly, her long fingers tangled in a few strands of hair that had escaped, twirling it about slowly.
Another tap of his cigarette into the tray, sending it to join the spent butts and cold white debris. "Nothing, I was just thinking."
"About what?"
I should know by now you would want to know, he thought, his wife fading as the same dark-haired waiter who had delivered and cleared their plates approached over Maria's shoulder, black tray with a silver pot and white cups balanced on one hand, white towel folded into the other. At least that should distract you. "Even if we'd grown up side by side, you would have been taught differently."
She was pulling on her hair, now, the growing chunk bent and crimped from however she had it tied back. "But then you wouldn't be able to make fun of me for being a child."
Georg laughed again, reaching for his glass, desperate for another sip of water to clear his mouth. He set it down right before himself as the waiter cleared his throat and set the shining pot between them. "And I think I would miss that."
Her hand hit the table harder than she meant it to despite the hair still twisted around her fingertips. "Georg!"
He snorted back another laugh as he loosened another button of his black suit coat. Between the memories and the tightness that always grew when he indulged in one too many cigarettes in a row, he couldn't breathe as easily as he liked. "You'll have to forgive me, but you make that a little too easy."
Maria looked up at the waiter for a moment, then back to him. "Then maybe I was taught differently!"
"I suppose. You do forget yourself rather often."
"And maybe I'm not the same as all the other women you know!"
He needed another draw of smoke as he blinked once, then again. You can't know what you just said, Maria, Georg thought, his fingers shaking anew, as though he had just woken, searching for his lighter and occasionally crushed cigarettes, whether sat on the table beside the chair in his barren front room or neglected in his coat from the day before. But you said it yourself, girl. Not even Elsa feels that way to—
"Are you well?"
Whether it was Maria's voice or the clank of one of the white ceramic cups against its saucer as the waiter placed the first in front of her, tiny spoon on the side, Georg wasn't certain which one broke through the memories. "Yes," he muttered, dragging the ashtray to him before the waiter gave him his own cup, then pouring the coffee for them both. Is it so wrong, my love, needing to be free? For a little while, a few hours each week? You can have the rest of me—keep it the way you always—
"I don't think you are."
Once again, despite half of the cigarette still balanced between the end of his fingers, Georg crushed the smoldering orange tip into tray with its prior brethren. "Perhaps. However, we weren't talking about me, or all the women in Austria—Maria."
I can't let him see me blush again, she thought, once again glad that her hands were tucked into her lap, one twisting into her skirt and probably adding yet another wrinkle to the fabric. Even if she pulled it off her shoulders the moment she closed the door to her room behind her—returned it to her wardrobe before she even stretched her legs from the morning and afternoon's walks—it always had a few heavy creases that hadn't been there when she slipped it from the hanger. But why can't I just stop doing that almost whenever he says anything to me? She reached for her cup before her hand had a chance to shake, her lips already pressed to the rim before she gave it another thought, taking a large sip—
Maria coughed, the coffee hotter and more bitter than she had expected, black and oily as it sloshed to and fro in the cup while she returned it to the saucer. It was just coffee, and strong, too, no milk or sugar to temper it the heat or acrid aftertaste. At least he isn't laughing at me this time, she thought, finally chancing another look up to Georg. Across the table, he was just sipping at his coffee: once and then again before returning his cup to the saucer in front of him. "Not to your taste, Fräulein?"
She shook her head, swallowing the last of the coffee to clear her mouth. "I always expect it to have the milk and sugar already." Reaching for the napkin the waiter had left despite clearing their plates, Maria wiped the corner of her mouth, just catching a droplet. "It was one of the few things I could afford with my pocket money when I was young."
"And now?" Georg asked, another mouthful of his own coffee not bothering him.
She nodded, her napkin back on the table. "Some mornings, if I'm on the bus I should be on."
I suppose I should have assumed that as well, Georg thought, waving his free hand in the air for the waiter attending their table.You may never say it, but you would have a gramophone of your own if you could afford it. But I can't think you would forego those cheap tickets even then. You need to be distracted as well, and not just by the music. "Well, just a minute for that. But we were talking about you."
Maria twisted in her chair, eager to look at anyone else but him. She couldn't be certain it was the same man who had served their table before—she hadn't worried about what he looked like as Georg ordered everything for them—but it couldn't hurt—
"Don't worry, he's already coming for whatever you want," Georg said, his hand sliding across the table before he could stop it, just grazing her fingertips before he yanked it back—and she spun back to him.
"What are…" She remembered his hands from those evenings on the streets, no gloves to go with his jacket as though he was too transformed by the unhappiness he didn't talk about to remember something so simple. (But the hours had gotten away from her as well, leaving her hands bare, too.) Each chilly evening, they were rough, the callouses scratchy as he dragged her to her feet. In the warmth now…"What are you doing?" Softer, delicate, like some of the years weighing on his shoulders had disappeared—melted in the glow of the electric lights hanging from the ceiling. Out in the street, it would have been easier to hide—
"Bringing you back again, Maria. You were hiding somewhere, even if I can't be sure." Across from her, Georg's hand was back in his pocket, searching for another cigarette, she assumed. "The way you wouldn't say a word last week—"
"No!" she said, shaking her head and loosening her knot of hair further.
"Don't shake your head." The fresh cigarette was already glowing bright at the end. "I could see it, then, you know I could."
She took another breath before the stink of the smoke overwhelmed her. "What of it?"
"All I mean is that I don't know if you are all that different than all the other women in Austria, never mind your foster mother or anyone else who taught you to keep your unhappiness—" A scratch rose in his throat, and Georg pulled the cigarette from his lips, his other hand curled into a fist to hold it back; it was just a quiet hem when it finally escaped. "To keep it all to yourself."
"Georg, please! I'm well! You have to let me look after them—" The coughing interrupted her as it would more and more over the next weeks, always the coughing.
"No, not you!"
"I'm not asking you anymore, I can't allow anyone else to do it!"
"...sir?" The last vestiges of summer faded around him, the more humid heat of the restaurant seizing him again and dragging him to winter again. "How may I help you, sir?" the waiter asked, arms tucked behind his back.
He must have already asked once, Georg thought, a stronger gulp of smoke already calming him. Every now and then, it wasn't only his hands shaking with the withdrawal or anger; when he least expected it, it was nearly his entire body. His chest, his legs, even his lips. He just nodded at Maria, though the waiter's gaze didn't move. Whenever his mind wandered so far back—taking his body with it—he feared his voice might crack.
"May I have some milk, please?" Maria asked softly after a moment. "For my coffee."
The man just glanced down at her, his eyes darting back to Georg even as he took another mouthful of smoke. "Sir?"
Did I speak too softly? Maria wondered, her fingers running along the edge of the saucer, a small chip biting at her skin. "May—"
"Milk," Georg said, now waving at her with a snap of his fingers. "You heard her."
The man nodded quickly, reaching down to collect their mussed napkins. "As you wish."
"And sugar?" Maria added, already reaching for the little spoon beside her cup.
The man nodded again, walking from their table a little faster than he had before as Maria changed her mind, her water glass in her hand again—a small sip compared to the coffee she had drunk blindly. "It really is quite the sweet tooth you have," Georg muttered around his cigarette. Don't you all— No. Not here.
"I suppose you're used to living without it!" she snapped, a few drops of water splashing across the back of her hand as the glass came down on the table, though there wasn't much left to spill.
"And you're on the defensive again." The waiter's shadow fell between them again, the small tray perched across his palm, just a small silver jug—the handle a touch black where one hand after another had seized it—and a small pot with another tiny spoon to match, both set in front of his...companion. I can't call you anything else.
"Thank you," Maria said, her hand already reaching for the sugar pot as the man scurried away as quickly as he had come. She tilted the lid back on its hinge, the little tab probably stiff with its own patch of tarnish, one heaped spoonful and then another added to her cup, the small spoon left in the sugar tin as she then poured in enough milk to transform what had been a lovely ebony black to tepid beige spinning at her mercy. But with her own spoon still caught between her fingers, Maria brought the cup to her lips, taking a deep sip with a smile. After another, she returned it to the saucer, smiling again as she kept her fingers wrapped around the white curve just above the base. "Most days. I'm happy if I can have jam for my bread."
I'll remember to ask for it all, next time, Georg thought, his own coffee already a little colder than he liked. You need something to make you smile, darling—
"Now it's your turn."
"Hmm?" His eyes rose.
"You're the one who's gone, now." He glanced away for a second, across the pathway for waiters and bussers, for customers coming and going. Just on the other side, a man like himself: worn by life, likely the same lines on his cheeks that Georg saw sprouting on his own when he shaved each morning's thin growth of beard. Sitting with him—Maria would probably already have a name for that stranger, he mused—a woman like himself, the weight of years buried beneath the powder she had likely feathered across her skin in the early hours of the morning.
And now, back to Maria. "No, I think you've forgotten yourself again," Georg murmured. You couldn't hold in anything like that if you tried. The girl he had met at the iron and stone gates was disappearing, even after only an hour or two, the façade constructed for mass splintering. Her chin propped on her left hand—her other still twirled the little spoon in her coffee—she was smiling at him, a little grin Georg wasn't sure she realized she wore. Every time he glanced her way, the long hair she must have struggled to tame before her walk to mass and its infernal chanting and prayer was looser, more and more of the broken strands at the front hanging beside her cheeks. What will it be like to touch—Georg clamped his lips—even his teeth!—onto his dampening cigarette; now it was his turn to hope the flush on his face wasn't burning like one of the lights above them.
"No, I know right where I am. But where are you?"
"Still here with you," he murmured before he coughed again. "But is it worth it, then?"
The smile shrank, though the little clink of the spoon continued, a monotonous little beat that might as well have been...He couldn't quite remember the name, the years of the violin and the guitar so long ago. "What?"
Georg jerked his head toward the window and the street, still cluttered with men and women going here or there. "Everything you've given up, leaving Vienna and coming to Salzburg."
"It wasn't that much—"
"I don't just mean whomever taught you to always keep quiet. As much as you seem to love music and waste your money on the cheapest tickets—"
"That's not a waste!"
His eyes narrowed again. He had already grown accustomed to Maria's words wandering from her tongue ahead of her thoughts and good sense, but her voice had risen so much that at the table behind them, a young man with his back to them had turned, searching for who had just shouted. But Georg simply took another sip of coffee, his hand and arm still steady. "If you're going hungry over the weekend, then it's a poor decision at the very least."
"No, it's not," she whispered. Her fingers were tight on her cup's handle, knuckles white and her hand shivering, almost as though the porcelain with its little nicks was stopping her from trembling. Nearly gone, he thought, just the inside of the cup stained with the last tracks to be seen. "I told you my father never played any of the instruments he had, not even his guitar." A faint smile—a sad smile, one Georg recognized well. "At least when I was there." Then another large mouthful of coffee, both hands now nestled on that little mug on its saucer. "But there must have been something he loved of music, collecting all of them. Even if it was just the idea…"
Maria sank back in her seat, not quite sitting anymore, but slumped, shoulders rolled forward, her gaze on her hands, slack and vacant. Truly gone. "I apologize," Georg said for the second time that day, peeling one of his own hands away from his own cup, finally wrapping it around hers.
"Why? It's nothing you did."
"No, but…" God, she was so warm, almost burning up against his palm. "I didn't mean to make you think about all of it again."
"I usually don't—at least not so much." It was something new in her stomach, a knot that she might mistake for hunger if she wasn't so full, the waiter had cleared half her plate away untouched. You said I forgot myself, but I think you just did, too. Were those his fingers running along the back of her hand? So light—almost delicate—she couldn't quite be certain, not unless she looked for herself. Yes. Now, tiny circles with his thumb, just beneath the bump of the knuckle of her index finger. And now, there was her heart, racing ahead again in her chest and sending the blood rushing in her ear—
A dull clatter rang out from somewhere in the restaurant, an endless echo of metal—and Maria jumped in her chair, pulling her hand from beneath Georg's, her other still so firmly on the cup, she tipped it on its side on the saucer. The milky coffee spread across the ceramic—onto the tablecloth—and finally across Georg's bare palm. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Where was her napkin? Somewhere on the table?—the floor?—the waiter hadn't taken it earlier, had he?—oh, how did she always do things like this when there was something on her mind?—no one in Vienna would be surprised—
His own napkin in his other hand, he wiped the last of it away, though he ignored the splashes on the tablecloth before he dropped his linen in a crumpled pile next to their water glasses. "You poured enough milk in there, I could hardly tell it was ever hot."
"I thought it was finished already."
He shoved his own cup to the side. "Not used to lingering, Maria?"
She shook her head. "I just always worry I have something to do, or some place to go."
"Must be nice," Georg whispered, his the feet of his chair scraping the floor as he dragged it closer. He would have stopped her moving, this close. I haven't known—
"What?"
One of his hands curled into a fist, the nails he hadn't trimmed for a few days sharp and harsh against his fleshy palm. "I'm sorry, don't worry about it."
"I wasn't going to, I was just curious. But if you're so sure I shouldn't, then maybe I will."
And there they were again, her blue eyes refusing to look away now that whatever had tormented her had chosen him instead.You've seen your share of what I have, even if you wear it well. He reached for his cup. "Just to frustrate me, Fräulein?"
"No—"
"Then why?"
"Will you ever let me finish anything?"
"I believe I asked my question first, and I told you earlier, I'm used to having my questions answered."
"And what happens if I won't answer until you answer me?"
Georg grinned behind his coffee for a moment, allowing himself another sip before he returned it to the saucer, nearly empty. "Then we'll be at a stalemate." He leaned forward, his hand unfurling and almost reaching for hers again. It had been so soft, even with the bumps of her knuckles nearly shivering as some memory she wouldn't quite share—quite yet, he was certain—played through her memory. Probably time and again, he thought, his fingers twitching with a sudden chill."I'm sure you're familiar with those?"
Maria nodded. "More than I wish." She closed her eyes briefly, her chest rising as she seemed to take a deep breath. He folded his fingers up to his palm again; if he didn't, didn't force himself to remember where and when, and not just now—"But I'm sure you had to...oh, I'm not sure what I mean, Georg."
"If you mean during the war, then fewer than you might think." He downed the last of his coffee, only a few coarse grounds floating atop the final drops.
"No?"
"I...was lucky enough the captain could evade the Allies without too much trouble." Georg still couldn't recall who had named him "the dread of the Adriatic"; some reporter for one of Vienna's papers, he had always assumed, desperate to sell another stack of papers when so many of them only printed news grimmer than the day before.
"My foster mother always said she didn't understand how they defeated us." Maria cleared her throat, a small tickle growing at the back of her mouth as she lifted her water glass, draining the final drops to calm the burn. "But I suppose you must think the same. You look as though you miss it."
You don't know what you're saying, Georg thought, his hand in the air again to summon their waiter before he drew a few schillings from his pocket, not bothering to count out the notes. "And should I have a peg-leg on one knee and patch over the other eye to prove it?"
"No, but sometimes you're so distant when you talk about it."
Maybe it was all for the best. There was the shaking again, the nicotine craving overwhelming him in an instant. At least that would drive the memories back to the shadows. I can't quite pull you away from it, love. I remember first seeing you as the world began to change—there wasn't anything to do by then—and leaving you behind to pull it all apart, always craving your letters as you were waiting for Liesl to finally appear—
"Just like now."
Christ, girl, you see more than I ever thought you might. "Don't worry…"
It wasn't a smile, this time, almost a smirk as she replaced her glass, twisting it around as she slid it right beside his, now crossing her arms beneath those small breasts she probably didn't give a second thought. "You see? You always say that when you don't want me to know something.
The waiter slipped the stack of schillings from the tablecloth, hurrying away as he had most of the afternoon, off to...well, Georg couldn't say, he had never seen the bowels of a restaurant or shop. The man would be back with the change soon enough, probably happy enough to see them leave.
He leaned forward again—toward Maria—both of his elbows catching on the edge of the table, his chin propped on the back of one of his hands as he folded them together. "So I should tell a nineteen year-old girl every thought that comes into my head?"
Another shake of her head, loosening another few strands of hair. I could finish the job for you if you would let me, darling. "No," she said, chewing at her bottom lip as though she needed to give herself another second to think. She reached up to scratch the back of her neck, though she quickly found the hair floating freely by the side of her face. "But you did say you liked talking with me. I know I've been told that I can't quite keep my thoughts to myself—"
"All afternoon, Maria."
Her eyes narrowed. "But you can't just want to keep hearing everything that comes into my head."
"It's not so bad as your—foster mother told you."
"Maybe, but I know I should keep at least some of them to myself," she said softly, shrinking back against the back of her chair, the fabric over its bones cushioned more by the winter coat and scarf she had shed...it felt it must have been hours ago. Time had slipped away, sitting across from Georg, the minutes somehow unable to decide if they were speeding away or crawling like the final hours before her train from Vienna to Salzburg had departed.
"I'm not sure you can."
"But I have to—" She bit her lip, hard, for a moment wondering if the bottom edge of her front teeth had cut through her skin. At least around you, Georg. He didn't know—couldn't know—quite how he distracted her. If it had been bad enough in the days leading up to their prior meeting—when the bustle of the street around her was quieter as she waited for the bus to her school, when her students finally busied themselves with their lessons, when her own work was finished as evening transformed into the night proper—this last week...Oh, help.
"And you've failed again." Georg pushed his chair back from the table, one arm twisted around for his coat. "There was a moment just now when you didn't look embarrassed by yourself."
"I'm not!"
Another laugh as he folded his coat over his arms. "Your cheeks wouldn't be red if you weren't."
Maria pressed her palm to her cheek, the color beneath her skin a flame against her hand. I can't keep doing this. He'll know everything I can't tell him. Little by little as the week had gone on, nothing had been enough to distract her from her little daydreams, especially as she lay in her bed, lamp out as she buried herself in the quilt and sheets. More often than she could ever admit, as her eyelids grew heavier and the velvety black faded to a muted grey with the faintest light from the window in her washroom, she wondered about his arms, the same sort of questions she had asked herself a few hours ago when she was left surprised to be meeting him at the entrance to the gardens rather than the other way round. Without a heavy winter coat or the suit jacket he wore beneath it—shirt sleeves alone—would she be able to trace the lines of his muscles? What would his hands feel like? Oh, she knew, that much was true, but it was either to force her to keep pace with him or, more humiliating, to keep her on her own two feet. If he was just to reach out and touch her, how different would it be? Lingering? Curious? Or simply as efficient as it had always been, determined to get her from here to there—
"Thank you, sir." The waiter was back: Maria hadn't even seen him coming, her own thoughts leaving her pulse beating in her ears like a howling wind. Handing back a few coins, the man's gaze drifted to her for a second, for the first time raking over her, from her flyaway hair to the faint wrinkles in her dress that she never quite banished. "Fräulein," he added with a short nod before he disappeared, off to another table where another patron had his hand in the air.
Georg was already standing, tossing his coat around his shoulders and waist, fingers fumbling for the first button. "I'd ask if you're finished"—he nodded at the pair of coffee cups between them—"but I think the last of yours is on the table."
He didn't allow them to linger, more than eager to be outside again, away from the bright lights and decorum. In there, everything is out in the open, he thought, forcing his footsteps to slow so that Maria could keep pace with him. Her scarf hung around her neck in a misshapen knot, Georg had hardly waited for her to don it and her coat before hurrying them both from the restaurant. At least out here, they vanished into the crowd. If it wasn't for Maria calling his name—"Georg!"—they might have just been two strangers walking beside one another on the street, not a mid-aged man accompanying a girl not even in her twenties. You know how it looks, he told himself as he paused, still biting down a smile as she properly caught up to him, her hands tangled in her scarf to tighten it.
"Thank you, Georg," she said, her voice slightly muffled by her hands and a gulp of air. "That was very kind of you, even if you don't quite agree about last Sunday."
He nodded, waving a hand for her to continue, forcing himself to slow to remain at her side. Her hand was lovely last week, even if she was so unwell. "I told you, I owed you a meal after that."
Maria settled her arms across her stomach, fingers knotted into her coat sleeves. It was too warm for gloves now, so she had tucked them into one of her pockets even though the air still bit harshly; she hadn't even bothered to fasten all her buttons. "But you didn't have to. You gave me so much money last week."
"It's not the same. You know that." I don't even know why I needed it today—at all. Just sitting with you like nothing is wrong, that nothing ever happened to make it all so wretched. It was swelling in his throat again, the coughs he had learned to release rather than the tears that had poisoned his home—no, the villa. Christ, the other didn't exist anymore, just like...His hand drifted toward her, just brushing her elbow. "But let me walk you home?"
"It's the middle of the afternoon—and it's not that far at all—"
"Yes, but it won't be much longer before the breeze turns too chilly for you, even if you are dressed for it today."
Maria let out a loud sigh, one of her arms falling to her side as her pace increased, leaving Georg behind for a second before she turned back over her shoulder. "And you!" she snapped, her shoulder knocking against someone—the man or woman was already past by the time she looked back. "You were no better dressed for the winter than I was at first."
He overtook her in a second, a hand on one of her hips to draw her out of the path of pedestrians hurrying the other way. Dallying for a moment too long, she thought, his fingers clenched against the swell of her bone. No, she told herself as his hand fell back and he took his place beside her, slower than he had been before. "Spend just a few hours on a submarine once it's dived, Fräulein. It won't be just the cold bothering you."
They walked through the streets without saying much more for a few minutes, Maria only telling him to take this turn or that. It wasn't so foreign as Georg had expected: neither the corner of Salzburg that his companion apparently called home, nor the calm washing over him like a wave breaking against a rocky beach. Was it the anonymity of the crowd, the people who didn't know each other, who would never see one another again? Who didn't know his name, didn't know to ask why he very nearly had a girl of nineteen on his arm, her eyes drifting to him just now when she didn't think he would notice? Or perhaps—
"Oh!"
Next to him, Maria pitched forward—one of her hands thrown forward—and not even waiting a second, Georg caught her upper arm with one of his own hands, the other around her waist over the arm she still had clutched around her abdomen. Beneath his palm as he righted her, he felt her breathing hasten, her heart probably pounding as well deep in her chest. "Do that again, Maria, and I'll think it's something you mean to do." Past the rough patch of cobblestones—just off to the side where spring would bring the hundreds of little flowers and blossoms she probably adored—he slid his hand around to the gentle curve of her back, spinning her back to him. "At least when you're around me."
"It's not," she whispered, a tremble building somewhere deep in her spine. "I have enough scars on my knees and elbows from where I've scraped them on rocks and falling out of trees."
"Somehow, that doesn't surprise me in the least." And perhaps that's all I think: I'm just accustomed to having her near me already. He peered down at Maria, who was first straightening the bottom of her dress and then smoothing away a wrinkle in her coat, not even trying to tug her other arm from his grasp. And you're already used to it as well. God, if he closed his eyes too long just to blink, Georg knew he would see her as he first had, sprawled with her dress halfway up her legs in the encroaching twilight. Another inch or two, would he have seen one of those marks marring her pale skin? Pink or white, raised and rough if he had been able to touch—
"Oh, but before I forget!" Maria pulling her arm away from him brought Georg back to Sunday afternoon. "I should have given you this earlier." Now out of her pocket, he could see the jumble of crumpled notes clutched in her folded hands, held out to him. "Here."
"Whatever for?"
Her eyes widened, as though she didn't understand his question. "My lunch."
"Don't think about it, Maria," he said as he pushed her hand away. Everything left from last Sunday, he knew.
Maria's gaze dropped down between them, to his hand still around hers. Why don't I want you to let go? she asked herself, a new lump swelling at the bottom of her throat. "But that's two weeks in a row, now, you can't just keep paying for things like that!"
He laughed, now brushing the back of his other hand against her cheek. "Prepared to tell me what to do?" Turning his hand over, Georg couldn't stop his fingers from grazing her jaw, the line of the bone sharper than it should be.
"No, but…" She took a deep breath as he drew her face up again. "You shouldn't have to, that's all I mean."
"I had to, last week." God, more than once these last days as he struggled to sleep—though happily, not that often—it hadn't been Agathe's face haunting the corners of his mind, worn with fever. Instead, it had been Maria's: drawn, starving, and exhausted. "Or should I have let you fall on your face the moment I turned away?"
"You don't know I would have done—"
"And I meant exactly what I said. I knew what I saw in your face—"
She yanked her face away from him, her clenched hand from his grasp. "You have to stop telling me things like!"
"All of it is true."
"But you have to stop talking to me like a child. Why should I even be here if it's all you do?"
Georg took her empty hand once more, pulling her a little closer to him, now only a few inches between their feet, her chest almost pressed against his. Would those faint curves be plain to feel even between their clothing—their heavy coats, her dress, his suit jacket and shirt—if he ignored the clamor of the city around them and crushed her against him for a brief moment? The first hint of something so old and familiar, yet so new and intriguing and confusing all at once. "Is that why is was worth it to leave Vienna?" he whispered. Her hand was limp for a second as he tightened his grasp—until he felt her fingers searching for him, tiny and nearly fragile as they curled around his. "Even though you can hardly afford it here?" She nodded, another chunk of her hair escaping its confines. You might as well let it all go, darling. "Then I'll stop. Or at least try, if that will make you feel better."
Another nod, but no more red on her cheeks. "Please."
Dropping her hand, his own wandered across her face again, his index finger twisted lightly in that hair. Clean and fine, the barest hint of a curl as he wrapped it again, his thumb nearly brushing against her mouth. How sweet will you taste, Maria? Like all the sugar you stirred into your coffee?
"But, please." Her voice was shaky, trembling in time with her hand. "This is yours."
He pushed it back, his touch rising along her coat, just where he could imagine those small, round breasts he had noticed as she sat across from him. "I think you need it more than I do."
"You know I have my own job—my own money."
"Do I? For all I know, you're locked behind convent walls until they release you at their leisure."
"What!" Her voice was louder, now, like before.
"Or you climb the walls yourself."
Maria bit down on her lip, laughter bubbling up in her chest as she pressed the back of her clenched hand to her mouth, desperate to hold it back. "That's one of the most foolish things you've ever said."
His arm was around her waist—turning her around as he set a slower pace than before—lingering again for a few seconds before it fell away, leaving Maria wondering if it really was a new chill at the bottom of her back or just her imagination. "It is something I try to avoid. They aren't much use on a submarine or a frigate's top deck."
Maria finally tucked the notes and coins back in her pocket. It was no use, it seemed, almost begging Georg to take back what was his. "I'll have to believe you, I won't ever know for myself."
The silence fell between them again, broken only when Maria realized she had forgotten a turn entirely, though Georg simply found a new path, the city streets far more familiar to him than her. "So what was happening last Sunday?" he asked after another few minutes. As the farther edge of the city approached, both of them had slowed: neither ready to ask the other to stay a little longer.
Maria tucked her arms behind her waist, her hands clasped together to hold her fingers still. "I was still waiting for my wages after paying for my room, that's all. Really, that's why you have to take back what's left. It doesn't happen often—"
"So keep it for the next time that happens."
She finally stopped again. "But what about you? You can't just always have so much money in your pocket."
He sighed, a few hairs falling into his eyes before he finally pushed them away. She was peering up at him, right into him as she so liked to do. And you won't say "no" to anything else, will you? "The navy was very good to me, before it was dissolved all those years ago." Georg took her elbow, starting their walk again. At least it gave him something else to think on: where they were going rather than where he had been. "I had managed to rise...somewhat from being a common sailor ahead of the end."
"You never said that before."
"And you never told me who taught you to be so quiet, until today."
"What?"
He nodded them forward, Maria a few steps behind as she nearly always was. "And probably for more than just your little stories."
Her heart sank for a moment, and her hands were suddenly colder than the breeze should make them. "Remember, Maria, little girls were made to be seen and not heard." And always his hands searching for her, even from those first days when she arrived on his doorstep hand in hand with her foster mother at her side, clothes and a few little toys packed away in a carpet bag, staring up at a man she had never met before. Cropped fair hair, dark brown eyes, and always a frown across his pale face. "About anything, my dear."
"Maria?"
She had stopped, Maria realized, Georg looking back at her, his eyebrows knitted together overtop a small frown. "Not now, I...I can't."
He strode back to her, wrapping his hand around hers once more, though now he just stood with her, hardly out of the way of the dwindling stream of pedestrians. "Then I'll keep it in mind."
How are you always so warm? she wondered, the heat running up her arm from her palm. "Next week?" she asked softly, refusing to look at the road before them. It was only a block or two until the worn brickwork of her boarding house would rise, bringing her back to her own little life, to her papers to mark, her guitar, and her father's books whenever she had a few minutes at the end of the evening. They would say farewell, and it would be another seven days of the same little life—
"The week after, Maria."
Her pulse raced for a second. "Is something wrong?"
Georg shook his head, still not stepping away from her. "Not at all. Only—something I have to look after." The household—well, primarily Franz and Frau Schmidt—rarely disturbed him when he was gone, whether on the rare occasions he had been in Vienna or the weeks and now months he had hidden here in Salzburg. But there was too much to look after in Aigen over the coming week and the start of the next. Not only was there an interview with the governess the housekeeper was desperate to hire, but the household manager and gardener to talk with about plans for the spring and summer, a housemaid to hire to replace one departing ahead of an unexpected marriage; if Frau Schmidt's whispered complaints when she thought he hadn't been listening was anything to be believed, it was one of necessity rather than affection. Undoubtedly more by the time he finally made his escape again! And all of it requiring more time than needed as he struggled to hide from the children, to sleep soundly through the night as he searched vainly for the sound of his wife's breathing—
"So that Sunday?"
"Still that eager, are you?" He couldn't resist another glance down at their hands knotted together, Maria's fingers finally tight around his in a way they never had been. You shall certainly be a welcome sight when I return. I don't think I could even bear to look at you with the children still clinging to me.
Maria licked her lips, a fresh breeze rough and harsh against the chapped skin. Perhaps she had bitten the bottom lip a little too hard. "Maybe I enjoy talking to you as much as you like talking to me."
It was a little grin looking down at her, Georg's thumb running along her knuckles. "Well, I would certainly hope so after this long."
So long? "It's only been a few weeks." But sometimes, Georg, I think I've been waiting to meet you for so much of my life.
Releasing her hand, Georg's own rose: first to her chin, then up along her jaw again. "Well, sometimes, it feels as though it's been so much more. I don't…" He had to wrap her hair around his fingers another time, the knot at the base of her skull surely half gone by now. "I don't think you understand what a distraction you are."
She missed his skin against hers, and Maria let her head fall into his hand as it opened to cup her cheek. A small sigh escaped her mouth, her eyes closed for a second as she struggled to memorize the lines and muscles against her skin, the little movements of his fingers as he drew her closer.
"A lovely distraction," Georg added, his own mouth suddenly dry, parched, like a drowning man craving a small sip of water to quench an intolerable thirst. "I'm sure you won't be late?"
Maria shook her head so slightly, he wouldn't have seen it, he only felt it as she opened her eyes anew. "No."
She was so close, her lips still parted: more than tantalizing, she was so tempting, those pink lips nearly impossible to resist. There was a scent clinging to her, overwhelming, intoxicating...God, every muscle in his body was tense and hardening. Another place, Maria, another time...Her eyes were clear and bright, and just in the middle of her bottom lip, Georg could see the faint mark of her front teeth. Another place and that would be long gone.
She was almost dizzy, standing so close to Georg, almost reaching for one of his coat's lapels to steady herself. Oh, it doesn't matter at this point! she told herself, trying to look anywhere but Georg's face. Those faint lines always fascinated her, all the marks of the years he had lived that still lay ahead of her. And now, it was a melange of smells invading her nostrils: clean wool and coffee, now something spiced, almost what she had always imagined a cologne might smell like. And then tobacco, richer and fuller than the smoke that had wafted between them over their meal.
"Maria—"
"You don't have to…" Now, she couldn't resist, had to claw for his coat. Against the very ends of her fingers, she felt his chest rising and falling faster, his breath racing like her own. Will you be soft or rough, now, no matter what your hands are like? I can never know, Georg. "You don't have to stop."
Don't stop? Georg asked himself, his hand tighter than ever around her chin. "Until what, Maria?" Still no more flush across her face, blossoming against his fingers—her mouth just parted, lips moist and undoubtedly delicious. "You know what you're asking for, don't you? Just remember, neither do you."
"What?" A simple word, it was laced together with a raspy gasp for air, almost as if she had forgotten how to breathe.
"You don't have to stop, either."
Her grasp on his coat tightened, bringing her even closer, her small breasts pressed against him. God, what might lay beneath her coat would haunt his imagination until...He needed a fresh breath, but it was still laden with everything that clung to her: cheap soap, mothballs probably packed around her dress apart from her weekly encounter with God, and innocence. Just innocence."You really don't hide behind a convent wall, do you?" Even with his hand holding her face still, Georg felt her shake her head against him. You really do know, at least what you want at first. "But...till then?"
Against his hand, he felt another breath in her throat. "Yes."
Georg leaned in, his mouth buried in her loose hair, inhaling deeply as it tickled his lips and nose, that mix of scents somehow already fading. "Good."
He hadn't even disappeared around the corner before Maria collapsed against the stone wall behind her, the façade of another building filled with rooms for men and women just like her. You didn't really let me ask today, Georg, she thought, her right hand pulling at the band holding back the last of her hair. The final swath fell around her shoulders, and she ran her fingers through it, one or two snarls giving way with a few tugs. All of us here in this street...There's something different about you. Her head fell back against the wall, still cushioned by her hair as the vice in her chest released. Or at least it had loosened.
She glanced down at her hand, the last white marks from Georg's fingers finally fading, he had held it so tightly. I wasn't going anywhere—you knew that. The tips of her own were already pressed to her lips, a hint of that same cologne in her lungs again. Why were you holding me so tightly? Behind her hand, Maria felt another small grin. "No convent walls here," she murmured, her hand falling back as she took her first steps in the opposite direction, away from him and back to her own simpler life.
It might as well have been the last of the journey back from her classroom, the final few steps after she stepped off the bus. The sun a little higher in the sky, fewer people in the street, her dress all wrong for a normal school day...and a little emptiness. Georg had walked away from her without looking back, but maybe she shouldn't be surprised. There's always a little something troubling you, she thought as she pulled open the worn wooden door to her boarding house. Like you can't escape it, except..."I don't think you understand what a distraction you are."
"I don't quite understand you, Georg." The door clanged closed behind her as Maria unknotted the scarf from her neck, tossing her long hair aside as she twisted it around her forearm. "I think I would rather talk with you than sit in my room and mark my papers, but…" The only button she had bothered with on her coat as he led them from the café gave way beneath her fingers. "It doesn't seem like it would be so bad if you were—"
"Maria!"
Somewhere from just along the corridor, that was all Maria noticed at first. A man's voice, but she didn't really talk with any of her neighbors, more than just to say "hello" if they passed one another."Yes?" she asked as she looked up, her left arm already halfway from her coat sleeve. No, please! she thought, her right arm coming free slower as she folded her coat together with her scarf. The same tall frame and broad shoulders beneath a white shirt and knitted sweater, beard shorter than the last time she had seen him—what was his name?—hair messier than she remembered. "Oh, it's—you," she muttered, suddenly holding her arms tighter across her belly. Please don't ask to talk now.
He laughed, pausing a few feet from her as he rifled a hand through his dark blond hair, smiling down at her. "Don't sound so surprised. We both live here."
"I just—well, I didn't expect to see you."
His eyebrows furrowed over his brown eyes; even if she had been closer, Maria doubted she would have seen the same lines she saw on Georg's face. "Well, I've been hoping to see you again."
Maria shrugged a chunk of hair over her shoulder, her free hand already twirling it around. "Was there something you wanted...Lukas!" She nearly shouted his name, finally finding it as she scoured her memory.
Now, he turned his head to one side, eyes running from the top of her head down to her boots on the floor. "Just what I told you now."
"I'm sorry, but—"
He reached for her arm, almost tight as a vice, probably turning her skin as white beneath her dress as Georg's grasp had left her hand. "A minute of your time, that's all. You can't have anywhere to go this late on a Sunday afternoon, especially if you've been out all day."
"How do you know that?" Beneath his hand, the first tingles were already growing, surely just ahead of pins and needles.
"I saw you leave this morning, but I couldn't catch your attention, you were going so fast."
Maria turned her arm in his grasp, but her dress sleeve was caught between his fingers. "I didn't want to be late for mass."
Another laugh, though this one wasn't as light. "Wasn't it be the same as it was last week?"
"No!" she snapped, finally wrenching her arm away.
The last traces of his smile were gone as he scratched at one corner of his beard. "Always sounded that way to me."
"Then you haven't really been listening."
"My mother made certain I did."
"Then not for a while."
Lukas glanced away, his mouth opening with a sigh before he tugged at his collar. "I wasn't looking for you this morning to argue."
"So what is it?" Maria took a step back, closer to the stairwell. She didn't know where in the warren of hallways and tiny rooms he lived, but at least the steps put her closer to her own room and the solitude she had not only expected, but needed after today. "I still have some papers to mark for tomorrow." You have to leave me alone, I just need to think about...everything.
"Something better than I had for you last week." His hand in his back trouser pocket, it emerged with a rose similar to the one he had given her a week ago. Even from a few steps back, Maria could see this one was larger, the stem longer with more petals encircling the center, though a few were bent and mussed from being stowed away. "I took more time with it, the last few days." Taking her hand—his arm was much longer than she thought—Lukas pressed it into the hollow between her thumb and forefinger, folding the others over it. Maria swallowed, a fresh cough ready to escape her throat. "And I hope you like it a little more—"
"Don't say another word, Lukas, please," she interrupted, still not closing her hand around the flower. The green silk was smooth—it was a different fabric for the red petals, this time—but she let it hang almost limp.
"What?"
She opened her hand as far as she could, the rose slipping farther between her fingers, ready to fall if he would just let her go. "I don't understand."
He snorted. "You don't?"
"Oh, I mean...I do, what you're trying to ask. I'm not that young—"
"You're certainly acting as though you are," Lukas snapped, his hand tighter than ever.
"No—"
"You are if you're on your own like this without anyone to look after you."
"You won't have me to look after you—" She hadn't let him say anything after that, her voice finally rising after all the years feeling her neck beneath his boot, running from him whenever he ventured too close—
"And maybe someday, you'll learn to be grateful when someone wants—"
"I don't need you to do that for me!" She thrust the rose back at him. "You can take this back to your shop, where it—"
"Keep it, like the last one." He pushed her hand back, crushing the delicate blossom beneath his own. "It's a gift."
He didn't say anything else, just disappearing off into the corridor where he must have come from. I don't know anything about him, Maria thought, her fingers unfurling from around the flower he had almost demanded she take. The stem would have been broken in half if it had been a summer rose clipped from a bush, her hand then ragged from the thorns that today had folded instead. She almost looked over her shoulder, back down the corridor that led to the front door, the street...But, I don't know all that much about you either, Georg, even if...This isn't the place to think about him like that.
Her unwanted prize shoved into the bundle of her coat and scarf, Maria made for the stairs, the flat and scratched floorboards vanished in lieu of the stairs before she even heard her feet. She took the steps quickly, some two at a time. This time, she didn't worry about catching her toes on the uneven wooden planks or the rough knots, instead just hurrying, hurrying, hurrying...And with the door to her room closed behind her—the bolt closed against her neighbors and acquaintances—Maria felt the unexpected stitch in her side, just at the top of her waist as she slumped against it, a deep gulp of breath filling her lungs. At least I can have a little time to myself to think.
Now with her outer clothes caught between her arm and ribcage, she knelt down to tend to her boots, the laces loosening as she tugged them from the tongue. At least I can put them away tonight, she thought, the toe of her right foot holding down the heel of her left as she pulled her foot out. And maybe I won't even need them next Sunday. She frowned as she stood straight again, the top of each shoe pinched between her fingers. The Sunday after that, actually, remember.
With a shake of her head, Maria crossed the warped floor of her room, avoiding the corners of her bed and wardrobe, aching at the memory of more than a few bruises on her knees and calves. After just cracking the door to her cupboard and slipping her boots onto the bottom next to her other shoes—her unkempt scarf slipped onto the shelf at the top, the squashed fabric rose tossed behind it—Maria tugged the chain on the lamp by her bed, squinting as the bulb flared to life, just as she had left it in the morning. In the corner, bed was mostly tidy, though the top edge of the quilt was rumpled as always and the corners of her pillowcase were shoved back from the lumpy form beneath. On her desk, four or five stacks of papers: three were marked, two still sat untouched by her red pencil. Behind all the work that still awaited her, her father's books still standing straight in line. "Like little soldiers," she whispered as she walked back to her wardrobe, returning her heavy coat to the hanger where it had hung earlier in the day. Her palm flat on the scratched knob, she giggled. "Or maybe I should say sailors, for you, Georg. I think you might like that better."
But he might not even like that: the thick coat dangled askew from the hanger, the coins and bills from last week a little heavier in one pocket, her gloves in the other too light to balance the weight. "You probably aren't quite in line enough for someone who was in the navy," Maria said as she rolled her neck back, hoping to hear a small crack that didn't come. She stretched her arms up, one resting on the crown of her head as the bottom of her dress's bodice rose with her torso, one of the side seams caught on her undergarments. Not that it mattered: back in her little world, it was already time to peel it away.
Tossing her hair aside from her face, she reached for the buttons now sitting just beneath the back of her ribcage. At the very top of her dress—right between her shoulder blades—they were almost impossible to reach. Somehow, working it over her head and torso with all but the lowest buttons fastened was easy, but when it came to changing out of her clothes at the end of each Sunday, Maria had to twist her arms this way and that. Her left hand steadied the buttons and their eyelets while her right struggled time and again to slip each flat black disc through the holes. "I should have followed the same pattern," she told herself, just as she did every Sunday. But somehow, she hadn't been able to resist sewing a slightly prettier one for church.
At least this afternoon, it only took a minute to loosen the final few at the top for her to pull the blue dress over her head, her hair falling back over her chemise in a lightly tangled mess. Despite the length of the day, there were only a few fresh wrinkles to smooth away from the blue skirt; but some time toward the end of the week, she would need to hang it in her washroom during a shower. Sliding it onto a hanger as well, Maria frowned as she closed her wardrobe again, one foot and then the other sliding back on the floor, her calves striking her mattress and the springs just behind her.
"It shouldn't matter that much," she murmured, dropping onto her quilt. "It will just be like every other Sunday since you've been in Salzburg." She folded her hands over her shoulders, arms pressed to her chest against her greying chemise. "Or almost every other Sunday." There was a sudden chill in her room, something more than just what she should expect in late February. "I told you it's only been a few weeks," she whispered, her hands dropping into her lap. "But why does it feel so...wrong that I won't see you next week?"
Maria's face rose as she rubbed one of her eyes, her gaze on the papers to mark, another few blank pages behind the piles waiting for her to scribble out her lessons for the upcoming week. Well, for tomorrow might be better, she never seemed to follow them if she gave herself an evening to think them over again. "I wouldn't be as good as the captain you said you served under, I can't ever quite make up my mind." Maria frowned, both of her hands already working through her hair, already weaving the long braid she often wore when there was no reason for anything fancier, the last few turns tight enough to hold it well enough without a band. "But was it just one captain? I can't imagine it was. Whenever I talk to her whenever I don't have my own things to worry about, Johanna, sometimes you can't stop talking about every headmaster who didn't know what he was doing. But I don't suppose we could know anything about the navy the way you do."
An itch was growing on her cheek, or maybe it had just been too long outside on a winter afternoon, even if the worst of the cold seemed to have broken. She ran her fingernails along her skin, but it felt deeper, her face drier. Rubbing at her nose, Maria sneezed, a thin film of the smoke from Georg's cigarettes still clinging to her—
Her stomach twisted again, a strange knot she didn't think she'd ever felt before. Maria inhaled deeply, her lungs swelling like she was in the choir rails with her classmates: she smelled the coffee, the tobacco, that mysterious cologne all over again. (Well, she still couldn't be sure about the last, she'd never been so close to a man like she had just been ever before.) And closing her eyes...She fell back onto her bed, the springs beneath the mattress creaking under even her tiny frame; it was still there, that tension growing beneath her belly, and her chemise tightening around her breasts pushed that deep breath away. She touched one of her hands to her lips, a little dry and chapped after the afternoon outside.
You were looking at me, weren't you? Her other hand abandoned the tail of her plait, wandering up to the top of her shift and the gentle curve of her breast, almost where that bruise had been a few weeks earlier. "You know what you're asking for, don't you?" She couldn't resist chewing at her thumb, the nail already snagged and ready to pull back if she caught it on a corner or pressed a string on her guitar the wrong way. It wouldn't be all that wrong, Georg, would it? Another little giggle, muffled by her hand. And maybe you'll prove that he was always wrong about me. I don't think you would want to talk with me, let alone...Her heart was racing and her breathing quickly followed. You wouldn't want to kiss me if you thought I was like that, would you?
Now on her stomach, Maria turned her face on its side, buried in the crook of her elbow, just the smell of her old quilt and the sheets she needed to scrub with washing powder rising up to her nose. Closing her eyes, she painted his face across her memory again: brilliant blue eyes beneath dark brows, tanned skin with its faint lines marking the years, and that thin scar just below...She rolled onto her back again, both arms still pressed to her face. I know it couldn't be a first for you—I'm not that silly, but...She licked her lips. It would be for me.
Maria lost track of the time before she dragged herself from her bed, finally pulling one of her ordinary dresses over her head. When she turned her attention to her papers—thankfully German rather than mathematics—she scribbled out one correction after another, the side of her hand covered in red smudges well before she was done. Even her own words were misspelled at the bottom of a paragraph she didn't quite remember reading, her thoughts always turning back to the street outside and Georg. His hands, how close they had been, the ache in her belly…
She didn't venture from her room for the remainder of the evening; despite not finishing her lunch, she wasn't quite hungry, nor was she happy about the thought of possibly seeing Lukas again. (The first little flower was still on her desk when she reached for her first stack of papers; she threw it up in her cupboard to join its twin as soon as she saw it.) Instead, she scrubbed her teeth and showered—no need to wash her hair this evening—and exchanged her dress for her nightgown. After winding her father's pocket watch, she nestled herself in her quilt against the encroaching night, the body of her guitar in her lap as she strummed at the strings, always just missing her ragged thumbnail. No song or tune she knew, just a chord here and there, the tips of her fingers wandering and pinching wherever and whatever they wanted. Would you like that? Maria asked herself as she finally settled the instrument beside her bed, as far as she could reach without falling on her face. Just whatever came into my head, like when we talk? I hope you would.
She didn't struggle against how heavy her eyelids were, how all the bedclothes were suddenly weights atop her limbs, instead burying herself deeper as the nightly chill drifted through the fissures in the walls and beneath the little window over her washroom sink. Even her prayers came from her bed, a little muffled by a few yawns. Surely God wouldn't mind just this once? It was silly, thinking of it all as such a long day, but everything felt so different than this morning, to say nothing of the night before.
I'm sure it isn't the same for you, Maria thought, another yawn escaping her lips as she finally extinguished her lamp. I can't think that you've never...She burrowed her face deeper into the pillow. You must have felt this way before, Georg. Yet another yawn as she stretched out her arm, a faint tingle beginning to pulse in her elbow. Even if I don't really...know what...to call it. Her eyes fell closed as she pulled her arm up against her torso to keep her body heat in; maybe it would all make more sense tomorrow...
His mouth was soft, crushed against hers, and so very warm. Warmer than she could have ever dreamed. His hand curled around her chin kept her still, almost molded to him. "Maria," he rasped, something scratching against her cheek as she turned away for a moment. She couldn't speak—couldn't breathe as that heat drifted down to the swell of her neck, his hair tickling the inside of her ear.
"W—what?" She shivered against him—against his palm somehow against the bare skin of her back. Burning, now, wandering around her waist, higher and higher, up until she felt him wrap his fingers around her breast, tight enough to leave a fresh bruise as a twin to the one hardly faded a week ago.
"You know what you want." A new kiss just behind the hinge of her jaw. "Don't you?"
She nodded, her own hands searching for his skin—
Maria sat up, almost panting as the layers tucked around her fell away, her unknotted plait slapping against her collarbone. And beneath her ribs, her heart throbbed as something hummed deep in her belly, threatening to work its way deeper and deeper. What? What was...What time...She threw an arm out toward her side table, scratching for the chain on the lamp—her father's watch would be enough— That same thumbnail that had been spared by her guitar caught at the edge, bending back at the quick as she let a little shriek. Her other hand across her mouth, Maria yanked her hand back, her stinging finger curled deeper into her palm.
Why am I shaking? she wondered as she pulled her knees up beneath her quilt, up to her chest, leaving her calves and the lower half of her thighs behind. Right now, it's just like...She wrapped her arms around her legs, her face in the crook of her elbow, the dusky street glowing as she clenched her eyes shut. It was him, again, staring down at her—gaze running up her bare legs as she lay on her back on the cobblestone. Opening her eyes again, it didn't go away, the heat burning hotter in her stomach against the black night blanketing her, something she didn't quite know waiting in the darkness, somewhere out there with him.
It was what those little books must have been like, passed from one girl to another through the dormitory when the faculty or the staff weren't looking closely enough. Her face had burned with a shame that had sent her back to her childish books while her classmates eagerly flipped ahead to the middle, squealing as they clustered together in one of the far corners, their whispers incomprehensible as she peered up from behind the cover of one of her father's well-read books.
She pulled her quilt back up around her shoulders, her arms and legs shaking a little less as her heart finally slowed. "Just a dream," she told herself, already unworking the very end of her braid. "That's all, nothing you wanted to see or hear." Or feel.
Lying back against her mattress once more with her blankets tucked between her legs and arms, hands folded together against her chest, Maria rolled onto her side again. "A dream," she said again as she pushed the lump of her half-tamed hair from beneath her face. "It will all be like it never happened, like whenever you've been thinking about him like this before."
By the time she finally threw her feet on the chilly floor when the first rays of sunlight broke through the filmy glass of the little window in her washroom, Maria had woken from the same dream two more times.
