Chapter 26: Holy and Unholy
Friday, 9 June, 1933
Maria hadn't opened the package since she picked it up at Frau Eder's shop that last Saturday as May, impatient after the final fitting the week before. Well, she had snipped the strings that first night with the scissors she always used when she trimmed fabric for her own dresses—but she had only peeked through the gap in the brown paper. It was just wide enough to see the gleam of the dress she had only worn when the final pins were threaded through seams here and there, drawing it a little tighter than she ever did herself. "I suppose she was right," she had muttered that evening as she carefully settled it at the bottom of her wardrobe, shoving her scratched shoes aside, still not certain it belonged...well, anywhere in her little room. "I am getting married."
The last weeks had, at once, been both a blur of activity and agonizingly slow. Her students had turned in their last papers, sat for their last tests in maths, geography, and German—and her stack of assignments to mark each night had at last dwindled. On her last afternoon bus ride back from her classroom—shaking away Sonja's little hand and urging her to hurry home—she hadn't had a single paper to scribble across with her red pencil, and her bag was strangely empty.
But now, with midday approaching and her still in her nightdress even after a shower, she at last pushed away the brown wrapping paper away to leave a thin layer of gauzy paper instead. "I suppose that's what I saw," she muttered, reaching for far edge of that paper as well. She winced as it crinkled gently between her fingers. It might be nice to keep that, though I don't really have anything to wrap in it. Or anyone to give…
She dropped the tissue paper as her stomach tightened like it had so often these last weeks. As they had passed, she was always eager to see Georg in the evenings, often dragging herself from his arms. Sometimes as she finally traipsed up the stairs, she couldn't stop herself from remembering that evening after they finally returned to Salzburg from Attersee, her face still a touch raw from the breeze. She hadn't wanted to really think about what he meant, how she wouldn't quite be happy with herself as she finally admitted how she wished he didn't have to go.
"I really do understand now, I never thought I would quite this much," she murmured to herself. "Today couldn't quite come soon enough, at least...at least for me. And...oh, sometimes it just seems a little too good to be true, Georg."
Even her shower early in the morning had been strange, for once. Sleep had been nearly impossible, her mind racing, all at once excited and eager and terrified. But she wasn't the slightest bit tired. In fact, she could hardly sit still as she waited for the afternoon. By the time the water was finally cascading and hot, the first hints of hunger for breakfast had vanished, utterly subsumed by the fear in her belly. She had never spent so long scrubbing at her arms and legs, for a moment wondering if she was about to see a patch of skin worn raw and ready to bleed. She hadn't been able to trouble with her hair, still too much of it flowing over her shoulders to chance washing it. "Somehow, I don't think Georg would like it very much if…" She hadn't quite been able to finish, the words still so odd to hear. If my hair was so wet as we're being married.
Maria shook her head, still just trying to think about what she needed to do to prepare. Her father's pocket watch still on her ragged quilt, she had to open it again to be certain of the time, the tick a little louder as she caught the latch with her thumb and opened the case. A few minutes before eleven. "Oh…" He expected to meet her downstairs half past twelve. "And...I just don't know what to do. Well, there's also nothing else to do, is there?"
Setting it down again, she finally pushed the tissue paper aside, frowning for a moment. It wasn't the dress she remembered, silky and brilliant white with that band of blue cinched around her waist. "Oh…" It was that linen slip that Frau Eder had first worried over, unhappy to even attempt any real measuring for the dress before she was happy with what it was sitting on. "Even that's nicer than anything I've ever owned," she said as she shook out the folds before settling it down with a sweep of her hand to smooth the worst out. "And—oh, I'm a fool, aren't I? If this has a few wrinkles, then my dress—"
Maria stopped, a deep flush boiling across her cheeks, her skin nearly on fire as the next layer of clothing appeared. Is this what she meant, that she needed to sort something out for me? She could already see the flash of blue fabric, the same light and delicate white silk of the skirt and bodice gently folded over. But it was the gleaming undergarments atop that had her already embarrassed. A brand new brassiere, underwear that had never been worn, things she couldn't quite ever remember having herself. And that my new husband wouldn't be happy to see me in...She hadn't even touched them yet, but she had her hands back, clutched across her torso just below her breasts.
It was all just a little too nice, Maria suddenly felt. Everything about to happen later in the day, the prettiest clothes she'd ever had—of any sort!—and...She ran a hand through her hair, released from a quick messy knot she had thrown up onto the back of her head before her shower and then swiftly combed through. Spinning around, a gust of air across her calves biting at the last film of damp from the hot water, she dropped onto her old mattress with another wince as it creaked. I know it's coming—and it's what I wanted, she thought as she folded her palms together atop her rough cotton nightgown. She shook her head, too much of that moisture lingering on the back of her neck and trapped beneath her long mane of hair.
Just a few hours and...I'll be a wife. I know I've tried to think my way through it before, but somehow I can't think about what it means, I won't be a girl anymore, or at least the way it seems everyone has tried to tell me I am. She couldn't stop herself from peering down at her fingers laced together. I'll be wearing a ring tonight—I don't even know if Georg will, I couldn't afford one for him if he wanted it.
She shivered despite the warm morning air creeping through the walls and the last vestiges of heat drifting from her washroom. Sometimes, when her thoughts wandered a little, Maria realized how little she had thought about it all. In a week or two, depending on how many students were sent to the school with answers to the summer tutoring letters, she would have to return to the last bits of her old life: a woman and teacher who had once been a girl bearing the surname Kutschera. And...She couldn't stop herself rubbing her hand over her right ring finger, still not able to imagine how it would feel.
"What will they call me?" she whispered, unable to stop herself from falling back onto her quilt. "They've called me Fräulein Maria until now, but that wouldn't be right anymore, would it?" She couldn't let herself really wonder about her own next question, what would happen between the two of them as everything that seemed to happen between a man and his wife unfolded, if her time with the Bible and college science classes seemed to be right. Instead, she turned over onto her side, everything just now out of the parcel finally right there in front of her face. "Oh…" There really wasn't that much time left, was there?
Maria dragged the comb through her hair again, a few final knots caught in its teeth. Setting it aside, she tugged her nightdress over her head and peeled away her old undergarments, trying not to pay attention to the smoother fabric of what she donned instead. (She tried not to think about how much her hands were trembling as she struggled with the clasps at her back.) She pulled the linen slip over her head; it was tighter than her stained old shift, but...well, she felt it would be nothing like the dress still waiting in the paper's remnants on her bed. She tossed her hair to loosen if from the straps over her shoulders and pull the very ends from where they were caught under the very back.
She almost couldn't stand to touch the dress. But she finally forced herself to; another quick look after her father's pocket watch had left a fresh panic deep in her stomach. Shaking out the wrinkles, just as she had the slip already thrown over her shoulders, Maria gulped. If she had thought if earlier, it really was the prettiest dress she had ever owned. That lovely white silk, the pale blue band of satin meant to sit right around her waist, the darker blue at the bottom hem, the sleeves that that ended hardly past her shoulders and left her arms nearly bare in a way she had never dared before...How can this have anything to do with me? she asked herself yet again. Some days, it all still feels like a dream.
It was heavier than she remembered as she finally picked it up, a little sigh of relief escaping her lips as the skirt opened without any wrinkle to speak of and the darker blue at the bottom hem appeared. Why do I...She had to bite down a little giggle. I think you'll say I'm more than just presentable, Georg.
Her hair caught against her back again as the very top hem landed on her shoulders, a patch of skin right at the top of her spine still bare and chilly where the seam curved up into her neck. There hardly seems to be anything to this shift, she thought as she scratched at a brief itch. But I suppose she wouldn't want to see it peeking over the top hem of the dress she made. She struggled just as she had in the dressmaker's shop: one arm curved around her waist finding the zipper at the very bottom, managing to tug it halfway up her spine, just far enough for the other to catch it midway before she twisted it over her shoulder to finally bring it to the very top.
Maria dropped back down onto her bed, her gaze shifting down to her bare legs peeking from the very end of her dress, pale as though they had never seen the sunshine. She wiggled her toes, trying not to think about the shoes in her wardrobe, never worn but for that time in the shop, still certain she didn't quite belong. It was rather the same as everything that had gone into purchasing her dress, though this time Georg had simply given her a handful of schillings with a whisper into her ear that he was certain she could find something to match her dress, that it wouldn't do to have her in her old shoes. Lovely and white just like her dress, they sat in the same sort of brown paper as her dress had until this morning. I haven't needed them until today. But I suppose I don't need them quite yet.
Another glance at her father's watch brought fresh stab of nerves in her stomach. Well, what is left? she wondered. My hair and...She reached over to her side table and the little silver crucifix she had removed from the top of her wardrobe the night before, tucked far away into the corner beside those silk flowers she didn't like to think about. I just don't know what to do with them. She snagged the silver chain's clasp with her thumb before she wrapped it around her neck, struggling to catch the other end rather as she had to drag her dress's zipper up along her back. It was one of those little things she had salvaged from her parents, though she never touched it unlike her father's watch, rarely even thinking about it. She always left it wrapped in a small cloth, almost afraid that her fingertips would tarnish it. I never really knew you, Mother, she thought as the cross slipped down the very top of her chest. I couldn't bear it if something happened to the one thing I have of you.
Maria ran her fingers through her hair, finding a few remaining tangles as she began the long knot. It was a very different braid than she typically made forming in her hands, now, the plait bringing in one thin strand at a time. Half done, Maria left it loose as she scrambled to her washroom to find the little dish of hairpins on the edge of the basin. Bringing them back, she dropped onto her bed once more with the dish at her side, fingers already back at the end of the half-finished braid. But rather than tie it with the same band from her plait overnight, she twisted it up again, just winding it little by little at the back of her head. She only paused now and then to secure a piece with one of those pins, her hand shaking so badly, she nearly scattered her hairpins when her wrist grazed the chipped bowl.
But soon enough, the last pin was pushed into her braid, none of them scraping her scalp as they sometimes did. There really wasn't much more time before she would have to slip her feet into those pristine white shoes and hurry down the stairs to...what? "I still don't know sometimes," she whispered as rubbed her calves together against another itch. "A new life, I know that much, but I still don't know what that means. Not really."
A final look at her father's old watch had Maria on her feet and scrambling for those shoes at the bottom of her wardrobe, her hands a little less gentle with that brown paper than they had been with her dress and...Well, she didn't quite want to think about everything in that first package. "He'll think I'm late for everything, if I can't even be on time for…" Our wedding, she thought as she slipped her left foot—then her right—into the shoes. It still just seems so strange to think about it, let alone say it.
She glanced around her small room. It wouldn't be the same, being back here—whenever that was. Even with her job—her wages—the money she counted out carefully to pay for her room and the sometimes meager foods down in her little section of the kitchen's larder, it all somehow felt as though it belonged to a girl. The dresses in her wardrobe that she had nearly all run up herself, the little gifts from...that man that she didn't know how to let go of, so many of the lovely things in her life had disappeared, and most especially those books stacked on the corner of her desk. It does seem like a fairy tale, sometimes, that maybe Georg will somehow be a prince in disguise, or something like that. Though...I just want him, not someone else—
"Oh, what am I doing?" Maria didn't even bother to look at the time again before she was out the door, hardly closing it properly behind her. She nearly stumbled into one of those nurses who lived down the hall, probably returning from a night at the local hospital. She was in too much of a rush to even offer an apology, too eager to reach the front door.
It was just as warm as she had expected, a beautiful early June day in Salzburg. Hardly even a gentle breeze to break the growing summer humidity. And in the middle of the day, fewer people than she expected, though perhaps the rest of the the city still had to attend to their work. At least it won't be difficult for me to find him. Each evening after her classes that had just concluded, it was always the same place, the same block where he had insisted they meet ahead of their short trip to Attersee. Where are you? she wondered, not quite knowing where to look for him. Will we have a chance to do that again? Maybe longer, I suppose that might be nice? Even without saying the words aloud, Maria still blushed. "Oh, really, where are..."
Her pulse was suddenly pounding in her ears and her breath was short in her throat. "Oh, I can just see you, now," she whispered, Georg finally appearing as a few women in dark dresses and clothes tied over their hair finally walked away. His dark hair seemed a little fresher, as though newly trimmed even from the night before. He always dressed well and today's black suit was no different, and no doubt he had a dark tie knotted about his throat. His eyes were on the pavement as her pace grew faster; Maria ignored the little tutting of an older woman with a heavy coat still wrapped around her own shoulders, shaking her head as she finally passed by.
The smile was blooming on her face as she drew even closer, at last seeing his hand shoved deep into his pocket. Even beneath his suit coat, she could still remember the lines of his body finally—well nearly—laid bare on that afternoon boat ride at Attersee, and more so in that clearing...She glanced down, half remembering an uneven stone that had caught her shoe sometime last week—
"Well, at least I didn't have to catch you this time, darling," he murmured, his free hand around her waist to drag her against him.
Maria had to bite down a giggle; she found herself doing that more and more, especially when her stomach was turned around him. "Georg!"
"I wondered when I would finally see you, darling."
Maria pulled herself free, trying to look up at him. "I'm sorry," she whispered, almost lost as she tried to decide...she didn't quite know, only that she probably shouldn't grin. "I didn't mean to take so long—"
"Well, I did tell you, you should be presentable today." He pressed his lips to her temple as he pulled her back into his arm. "And you are quite lovely, this afternoon."
Lovely. Georg had to turn the word over in his head anew as as he continued to turn that thin steel whistle over in his pocket. You really were lovely, darling. He still remembered how greedily he shredded the tissue paper Agathe must have so delicately wrapped around it. That day, perhaps the first back from sea after the navy finally perished as lines on a map were redrawn, history be damned. Well, he had collapsed beside her that first night back, drifting into sleep before he hardly said a word, just eager to clutch her to his side. It might have been the second, he decided, in between his first moments with his daughter. He spun it again, fingers wandering the long memorized curves—
"What's that in your pocket, Georg?" Maria asked. She hoped her sudden blush didn't burn too brightly as she suddenly clung to his arm.
Georg shook his head, confused by the unexpected weight of her hand on the crook of his elbow. "I beg your pardon?"
"You're fiddling with something."
He struggled not to roll his eyes as he released the whistle, the weight tugging on his suit coat. "God, Maria, not now."
Maria frowned, once again struggling to keep up with her fiancé. "I'm just curious."
"You are nothing if not that, darling. But not today." I couldn't stand to talk to you about her any time, I think, and certainly not when I am about—
"Why not today?"
"Maria—"
"I didn't mean to bother—"
"It's nothing for you to worry about—today or any day—just a trinket from the war."
"But right now, that bothered—"
"Maria." Glancing down, the guilt was already blooming in his chest, the smile on his fiancée's face suddenly gone. "Forgive me darling," he whispered as he pulled her closer, a quick kiss pressed to the top of her head. He heard a quick shuddered breath, felt it drawn against his shirt. "Please don't think on it. The past is just the past."
"Is it?"
Georg nodded, one of his hands wandering to the knot of hair at the back of her head, more delicate and intricate than any he had ever seen her wearing when she was so eager to see him after her weekly visit to God. That worried over this moment, Maria? But I suppose I insisted as well. "Isn't yours?"
She nodded against his chest, still not wanting to argue with her fiancé on her wedding day. "I know you don't…" Maria gulped down a mouthful of air, warmer still against him. "Yes."
"Then don't think on it, yours or mine. I believe we have somewhere to be shortly." Even through his shirt—her face crushed against him just in the middle of his breastbone—Georg felt a fresh smile forming. "So shall we?" he murmured as he seized her hand again.
Pulling back from him, Maria's eyes were wide, almost a little damp in corners. "Yes," she whispered again. I don't want to tell you, I don't want you to know. I know you're a better man than that.
Georg seized her hand. "Then no more waiting, darling. Not anymore."
Perhaps it wasn't the best time, Georg wondered as he tightened his hand in hers and they began to amble along the road, nor his best choice earlier this morning. He hadn't been able to stop himself from dropping the whistle into his coat pocket after he straightened the collar of his shirt and knotted his tie—tugged a comb through his hair—finally knotted his laces on his best shoes. It really isn't, darling, he thought as Maria at last kept pace with him as they made their way through the crowd. It's haunted me at home for the last months, and I can't quite let it go right now, even if— He couldn't think anymore on it, just gripping her hand even tighter as he glanced here and there as they prepared to cross the next street.
Only a few days, now, his wife would have seen her thirty-fourth birthday. She never wanted much real attention when the day finally dawned, happier to spend the morning with her children offering her their little handmade gifts—open a small gift her mother had sent from Vienna—wander around the lake or some of the grounds with him. Simply happy to be with him. Was it simpler than being with the children, he sometimes asked himself. No cries, no fights, no little hands always reaching for her...Well, if he was honest, he was always eager to touch her—feel every curve even when his warm palms bled their heat into her skin.
"Not now," he said to himself as he pulled Maria along. "You can't be here now, not when it's so close to…" God, he couldn't even think about it. Just think about the next thing.
It wasn't too far to the car, still sat where he had left it after his recent trip to Aigen perhaps a week ago after the mess of telegrams and letters to...well, he had almost lost track of them. The children were nowhere to be seen, even their favorite books and toys gone to Vienna with their grandmother, no doubt in a private car reserved on the train. "I don't know the next time I'll be back," he had told Franz and Frau Schmidt, not even bothering to ask the nastier details of what had happened with...whatever the woman's name had been. "I have something to do," was all he had managed to say.
Something, Georg thought as he peered down at the girl next to him. Her lip was bitten as she trotted beside him, and a simple glance to the hair captured in a bun saw it bouncing with the effort of keeping pace. He slowed, not wanting her to grow out of breath—but there was the car as well, caught a little more tightly between one almost identical to the back and one more like the convertible he had left in Aigen in the front. Here to see your mistress? he wondered as he guided Maria through the small gaggle of pedestrians crossing the road. I suppose they might have thought it of me as well, those first weeks and months before I left it where it belonged. He glanced down again—caught Maria's quick gaze up at him before it returned to the street and the flush raged across her face.
He nearly walked into his own car, though it was only a grunt that escaped his mouth rather than a few curses. I know you wouldn't like that, darling, Georg thought as he opened the front door for her, a little flash of a familiar smile rising as he blinked. Fair skin beneath a coiled knot of dark hair, a sharp nose above smiling dark red lips—
"Thank you, Georg."
He jolted again, almost as though he had actually walked into the side of the vehicle. "Of course, darling," Georg murmured, one hand under his fiancée's arm to guide her into the passenger seat. She tugged her arm away to pull the folds of her white dress in with her, away from the doorframe and the grease and dirt lingering there. "And do be careful," he added as he leaned down, just catching her chin in his hand. "You are very lovely today—and I think…"
Maria peered up at him. Smiling. And happy, Georg decided. Why not me as—"What?" she asked.
"Don't worry over it, darling," he said as his fingers trailed up along the side of her face. He caught one in the tiniest loose strand of her hair just above her ear. I'm sure you'll be more than lovely in my bed tonight, though I still don't quite understand why you couldn't let me have you right then and there in that clearing. He forced a smile as he twisted that thin strand of hair a little tighter. Not even before God, this wedding. What difference does a few words like that make? Who would care? "But it isn't very far."
Maria lost track of where they were going, her hands folded in her lap atop the folds of her dress's white skirt. Just the rumbling of the car, the occasional squeal of another car's horn, and then Georg's own hand every now and then. Sometimes on her shoulder, once or twice trying to pick her fingers apart, even one time caught on her knee, though it was slightly hidden beneath the darker hem of her dress.
She couldn't decide whether to squirm away from him or lean into his arm as best she could. And whenever that last urge struck—sometimes almost overwhelming—stronger still was the churning in her stomach, that same burning she had barely been able to suppress for...Maria had lost long of how long. And then, there was the weight of her little cross on its chain against her skin as it hung about her neck. A little reminder of the guilt she deserved to feel for all the little dreams and thoughts.
More than anything, Maria was excited. A few times, her eyes wandered to Georg—her fiancé she still had to remind herself. So close to him, a desire she had been careful to resist since that moment in the clearing, she indulged herself in those glimpses. The hair finely trimmed at his temples, the strong cut of his jaw, the profile of his nose...She almost couldn't stand it, always dropping her gaze back to her hands.
What will today be like? she wondered with another bump over the road, that little cross swinging to and fro and her small breasts bouncing despite the brassiere around her chest. Oh, why did I think about that? The flush was already rushing across her cheeks, and she suddenly found herself grateful that Georg must be keeping his eyes trained on the road. If dressing just an hour before had been so strange, the fine clothes were suddenly uncomfortable. From the little cross around her neck to the dress she had never worn to the shoes that had never left her wardrobe...And even worse—preying on her mind more than she would admit—those silky undergarments.
Maybe I shouldn't ask what today will be like, but what will tonight be like. Despite those dreams that sometimes left her feeling upset and guilty and nearly giddy with temptation, Maria couldn't quite imagine it. She hadn't quite understand what Frau Eder had quite meant during that first visit for her dress, though she had nearly lost the woman's name with everything on her mind. Something about her new husband not being very excited to see her in her worn shift. Is this what you meant, if it's anything like what I'm feeling right now?
The flush was still on her cheeks, she knew, probably enough that Georg would tease her just like he had for those first few weeks. Oh, I could never say that to him, I know he wouldn't mean it like—that. Just that he always seemed to enjoy that—
The car slowed and Maria finally looked up, wondering if they were slowing at the church—no, courthouse, she reminded herself. She had tried to conceal her disappointment over the last weeks, though...There was no one else that she wanted there, apart from whomever were needed for everything to be right. I certainly wouldn't want anyone from Vienna, especially...No, she didn't want to think of them today, despite her letter to her foster mother weeks ago. Maybe, in a few weeks or a few months—
"Maria?"
Maria gasped, suddenly sitting straight, her hands instantly unfolded to tug her skirt farther down her legs. "Yes?"
Georg turned the wheel over. There was still about half the drive to go, and the impatience was beginning to wear. "I don't think you've said a word since you've been in this car?" Beside him, she nodded, her face down at her lap again. "There are times, especially lately, you haven't been able to stop saying things."
"I'm sorry," Maria whispered. She couldn't stop herself from twisting her fingers into her skirt's hem again. "I don't mean to be going on all the time, I just sometimes can't keep my thoughts—" She took another deep breath, not quite expecting his hand on her cheek, nor the gentle pause of the car. It must have been slowing while she was lost in her thoughts.
"And why would that be, darling?"
"What?"
"Why are you so sorry?"
"Please don't ask me." No, I don't want to think, him, not today.
"Worried?" Georg asked. He ran a finger along her cheekbone.
"Worried? Why would I be?" she asked a little faster than she meant.
"If you don't think I've seen you blushing the last few minutes, you don't do me credit as a former naval—man." Georg almost stumbled over his words, captain nearly tumbling from his mouth. I still don't quite know why I can't let you know, Maria. Everything would suddenly be different, I know it would. It always seems to be the moment someone knows. At least since her.
"Then what do you think?"
"The same reason you went so still that afternoon." Georg took her hand and brought it up to his mouth for a quick kiss. You're shaking again, you've never quite been able to hide it over these weeks. "I think you're more eager than you'll admit." He grinned as the red spread farther across her face. "Useless to pretend, darling. You wear your heart on your sleeve a little too often. But first things first, Maria."
Maria swallowed as Georg released her hand, his own returning to the steering wheel as hers landed in her lap once more. She didn't reach for her skirt this time; when Georg opened her palm with his, she had felt the sweat pooling there, and didn't want it soaking into her dress.
The car was moving again—just clearing another cluster of rough stones in the road—and Georg had his eyes thoroughly on the street. It had been one thing to glance at the girl beside him, his fiancée, another to look her right in the eye just now. If he did…
I don't quite understand, darling, he thought with a turn down another road. It's not as though I haven't had another woman other than my wife—far from it. And not just Elsa, if he was honest. There hadn't been so many girls clustered near the naval academy for no reason. There wouldn't be anything wrong with it, either, no matter what I know your church claims, Maria. Nothing to tie me to her any longer, but...He turned again. I don't know why I should want the same with you. Maybe I just couldn't stand—she would never quite forgive me for it, though perhaps not for this, either.
He couldn't stand to think about her any longer, either of them. It's just one afternoon, he reminded himself, moving to another gear. With his hand free, Georg struggled against the desire to dip his fingers into his pocket where those rings waited for the afternoon, the other pocket. Nothing fancy, just a pair of thin gold bands. Nothing beyond what a common sailor could afford, he had reminded himself in the shop that was still tucked back into the far corner of Salzburg both he and Maria called home. It was nothing like the ring with diamonds Agathe had worn through the course of their marriage, buried with her unlike those trinkets on the bureau in their now empty bedroom. Plain, but quality for Maria.
She definitely wouldn't forgive me for that, Georg thought with one more glance at her. Perhaps that's it, he went on to himself with his eyes back on the road ahead. You are just a girl, even if you're not a child the way I've teased you. You've no idea of life, not really, even if I know there are things you don't like to talk about—just as I won't, either. Its highs or its lows. He allowed himself one more look at her, perhaps the last until they finally stepped from the vehicle ready to walk hand in hand through that courthouse door. You're something brand new, darling, fresh…
"Georg?"
"Hmm?" A quick scan of the windshield brought the façade of the courthouse into view. Not too long now, darling. Just an hour or two I suppose until you're mine.
"Are we there?" Maria asked. Somewhere along the way in the last few minutes, she had tucked her hands under her backside, palms down, desperate for something to soak away the perspiration before...Before my wedding. Her heart was pounding again, faster than ever.
"Yes," Georg muttered as he searched for an open place to park. He passed one place—then another—yet another before he finally slid into an open patch of the street. "I told you it wasn't too far."
Maria lost track of where she was, lost track of the time. Between the twisting of the old corridors and her stomach, she didn't even know how long it was until she and Georg were sat just outside the clerk's office. Her feet refused to stay still, one fidgeting and then the other, her hands twisting here and there, nearly trembling. She tried not to look at Georg, though she wasn't quite sure why. Beside her, he was rather still, his jacket unbuttoned to allow him to lean forward just a bit, hands simply pressed together. Now and then he smiled, though she wondered if he was biting on his lip as she sometimes did when she didn't know what to say, or how to say it.
In front of them, men in suits a little less fancy than Georg's were moving here and there. Some holding papers, others books, occasionally a few less well dressed men following along, even a woman once! It all seems so ordinary for them, she thought, stilling one of her hands as she fiddled with the cross around her neck. And this feels so...extraordinary for me. For us.
The clerk at the entrance to the courthouse had hardly given them a second glance as they strode with her arm in the crook of his elbow, Maria still shivering more than she would admit. Just a curt direction to down this hallway, to sign in with that secretary. And that man hadn't looked up from his work either, instead just as brusquely instructing them to sit and wait. Just where they were now.
Every now and then, Maria looked up when she heard the clerk's secretary call someone's name—any name, she wasn't quite paying attention. In that moment, excitement always overwhelmed her nerves—and then when someone else stood at the call of a surname, she sank back against the wooden chair back, the excitement once again transforming into nervousness. I was so lighthearted when I sent that letter to Mother, but I don't know why I don't just feel like that all of the time. I love Georg, I know I do even if—it all seems so fast, sometimes. Maybe it's just that I wish he would just tell me whatever—
"Trapp." Georg's chair scraped backwards before Maria's as he stood. Her head came up with a start, so suddenly that her knot of hair slapped against the top of her back. I know I've been waiting, but it still seems so soon for something like—
"Maria," Georg said as he offered her his hand. "It's time."
"I know," she said as she stood with his help, not resisting as he kissed her cheek gently.
"Then why did you hesitate?"
"I didn't!" Taking a step forward, Maria almost stumbled into him, the new shoes still stiff and strange on her feet.
"Maybe not, if you're doing the same thing you did those first nights," he said with a gentle laugh. "But then, the clerk is waiting, darling."
It was a dream, Maria decided as she stood beside Georg in the clerk's office. It was all dark and old shelves lined with dusty books and ledgers and a desk just as cluttered: a fountain pen and ink well here, stacks of forms there, another small row of books jammed between two metal ends. And behind it, a scrag of beard on his chin and a loosened tie at his throat, a balding clerk, blotting the last form filled out by whomever had just left his office. Maria supposed she must have seen, but she had already forgotten; she wasn't quite certain she would spell her own name correctly right now.
"Trapp?" the man muttered, not looking up as he added the still drying page to his stack.
"Yes," Georg said as he tightened his hand on hers.
"And what may I do for you?"
She didn't hear the rest of what he said, or perhaps she had stopped really listening, only catching a word here and there. Something about a license, signatures, someone else. A small flurry of papers followed, a crinkled page passed to the front along with a pen. The clerk was staring at her, Maria realized, almost scowling while he waited for her to take it. "Fräulein?" She swallowed. "Fräulein!"
"Yes…" She stole a gaze up at Georg, his face unchanged.
"Your name, Fräulein, just there on the top line, before we proceed."
Maria's hand was shaking as she did, the nib slipping on the paper she scrawled her name. She could hardly read it, the very end of her first name bleeding into her last. The pen tumbled from her hand before she could hand it back, but the clerk simply grabbed it back up with a long sigh, offering it to Georg in turn. His grasp was more certain, she saw, nib to paper—and then a pause. "Georg?" she asked, finally able to catch a breath and almost hear again.
Georg scribbled his first name—and paused again. He had very nearly added that middle particle before he stopped himself. Everything will be different, darling, and I—I need you just as you are. "Nothing to worry about," he muttered. Quicker than before, he added his last name and shoved the pen and paper back to the clerk. He seized both of Maria's hands before she had a chance to see the little mark between Georg and Trapp.
After calling for the secretary at the desk to come into the office, the clerk was saying more and more. Maria doubted she would have heard it had she not shaken herself from that stupor as Georg wrote his name. Some bored words over whether everything was correct and legal, that both were free of any impediment, questions clearly anticipating a yes that left Maria so nearly frightened, she almost bit her tongue.
I'm sure I'm not saying everything the way I should, she thought, just trying to make herself think of Georg's fingers running over her knuckles and the heat of his palms. She hardly followed the clerk's words, mumbled from the comfort of his creaking chair as he yawned. She still stumbled over the short response to "Would she—" "Yes!"
Opposite her, Georg's answer was patient, measured. "Would he take her as his wife—" something like that. "I will," was all he had to say before the secretary vanished through the battered door and the clerk returned to his stack of papers.
I don't understand, Maria thought, still clutching Georg's hands. Somehow I thought it would suddenly be different, but I just feel the same. Just like the girl I was when stepped into this office. I know...She couldn't quite think the word, still standing there with her hands in his. I was so excited when I wrote Mother, but...She gulped. Oh, I wish it could have been in the church, I just know there wasn't any time.
He was staring at her, Maria realized, hardly blinking as he released one of her hands and tucked it into his pocket. (Was it the same one where he had been fiddling with something before?) Almost squinting at her, almost in some sort of disbelief. "Georg? What is? Why are you looking at—"
Maria couldn't finish her sentence, Georg's hand around her chin tugging her forward. It wasn't anything like the kisses they had shared, whether the first when her guard truly fell as they struggled to say farewell just outside her boarding house before she went up to her room, though it wouldn't really be her room now, would it? And nothing like the storm in that little clearing when a glass of wine she wasn't used to finally turned her head. His lips hardly touched hers—gone before she could even close her eyes. She pushed herself up onto her toes as best her stiff shoes allowed, struggling to follow his mouth—finding it for another moment—
Georg's hands on her shoulders gently pushed her back down. Her husband's hands."Georg? I don't understand."
"Later," he whispered as he gently guided her toward the door. "You'll understand then."
Perhaps he should be surprised that no one had yet commented, questioned this at all, Georg wondered. The clerk had hardly bothered to glance at his name, it seemed. Or perhaps it had just been too long, his name and picture too long out of the papers for anyone to remember. Especially you, he thought as he glanced down to the girl beside him, her arm twisted around his now rather than just her hand in his, his own free hand already in his pocket, that whistle burning at his skin. The rings could wait, he decided as he they neared the front door of the courthouse, reemerging into the sun and noise and warmth of the city. Not here. I need you to just—be mine, Maria. Something new, just for me.
A/N: I hate weddings, plus I didn't have the patience to research what a civil wedding in Austria would have looked like. Artistic license if I'm incorrect. Yet again, remember I know nothing about the geography of the region.
