Chapter 30: Options
Leon shook his head as he waved at the chair that sat in front of his desk. "But forgive me," he said quickly as he stepped back to his own behind the desk. Turning around, his lawyer was smiling broadly. "Please, sit down." Georg nodded, a pinched smile of his own all he could manage. "I should ask how you've been," he went on as he settled himself, hands now folded atop his desk. "I don't think I've seen you—"
"Since the funeral." His jacket fell open along the top of either tie as he sat; he hadn't bothered to redo the buttons after he stepped out of his car.
Leon's smile vanished as he hooked a finger around his shirt collar, loosening it a bit as he swallowed. "Yes." He glanced down to his desk, now shuffling a few of the scattered papers into a pile. "How are the children?"
"I assume they're well. May I?" Georg muttered as he plucked his hat from his head.
His lawyer's face came up as he nodded, his reach for a pen pausing in midair. "Well, of course, but...I beg your pardon?"
Georg dropped his hat on the front edge of the desk, a little breeze rushing across it and ruffling Leon's papers. "I sent them to Vienna at the start of the summer. To stay with their grandmother."
"Oh."
He thrust his hand into his jacket pocket, fingers flailing about for a cigarette— No, it was that damn woman's letter he found first. He didn't open it, didn't even look at before he shoved it into one of his suit's pockets flush to his chest. My own demon, Georg thought, his hand back in his first pocket. He finally pulled a cigarette free and had it between his lips and alight in a matter of seconds, now searching for his lighter. His hands were trembling now, though he suspected Leon would never quite notice, and he couldn't even be sure the reason for the shaking himself. It had been so early, he hadn't even bothered with a cup of coffee, either brewed in the small kitchen or at a café along the way. And certainly nothing Maria would make, not today. "There was finally a governess, Frau Schmidt insisted." The smoke burned—coated his mouth—but it would just be a few minutes before it steadied his nerves and hands. "I'm afraid she didn't stay for very long."
Leon managed to find the pen, glancing back down again to scribble a note. "You and—Agathe never had one before."
"Times change, Leon. You know that as well as I do."
"Quite," Leon muttered. He scrabbled behind his books, papers, and the small lamp between them, finally shoving an ashtray across the way.
"Thank you," Georg said, dropping the lighter onto the desk along with a tap of his cigarette, the first of the ash falling into the white dust likely leftover from Leon's own smoking. How to tell him? he wondered as he drew on leg up, ankle settled across his other knee. It's ludicrous—ridiculous—even when I tell it to myself, now. He took fresh breath of smoke. I had control once, and...He let the smoke go, the burn now rushing through his nose. I let myself become so confused by a girl half my age. She could be my daughter—
"Georg?"
"I've spent the last year in Salzburg, really," he said, his leg now coming back down, his foot once again on the floor.
"Oh?" His fingers folded together again, Leon propped his hands atop his knuckles, pausing for a moment to scratch at his cheek beside his mustache. "I would have expected to see you about the neighborhood, then."
"Yours?"
"I can't imagine you wanting to be anywhere else. Not too different from out there in Aigen, at least as far as the people go."
"No," Georg said slowly with a shake of his head. He dragged another deep breath off of his cigarette—then another before the first had scarcely touched his lungs. "It wasn't quite right."
One hand back on his desk, Leon reached for the gold case beside the small lamp to find a cigarette of his own. "I'm afraid I don't understand. Surely the children would—"
"I can't look at them right now, Leon." As he breathed out, this mouthful of smoke mixing with the cloud already hanging in the air, Georg loosened his tie, suddenly too tight at the base of his neck. "Any of them."
Leon's eyes narrowed, his right hand stilling as he found his silver lighter. "It's not easy, you knew it wouldn't be without—"
"I didn't come here for a lecture on how to—raise my children!" he snapped, crushing his burnt cigarette into the ashtray before leaning back into the wooden chair, just grabbing his lighter before his wrist slapped at one of the armrests. Just the way it used to be, before the girl. The way it should have stayed.
Leon finally picked up his lighter, a flick of the grooved wheel setting the end of his own cigarette alight. "Then why are you here?"
Georg pushed himself to his feet, suddenly unable to remain seated. His stomach was churning as he wandered to the far wall, just peering at the bookcase that ran its entire length. Book after book from the top shelf to the bottom; old newspapers filed in between; thin volumes bound in paper, probably case law from the past decades. Something from your organization, Georg supposed, his eyes caught on the smattering of pictures in shining golden frames. "To keep you on the right side of the law yourself, I suppose."
The largest was a photograph of a younger Leon—his hair yet to retreat from the top of his forehead—standing behind a family, his family. His hand sat on a woman's shoulder, dark hair draped around her neck, her lap full of two babies squirming with their arms in the air. The twins before I ever met them, Georg thought as he thrust his hand into his pocket. He already needed another cigarette. At either side of the woman's feet—Leon's first wife, Kathe—two girls in pale dresses, feet tucked away beneath their skirts, the same dark hair hanging around their somber faces, one with a hand tucked around their mother's shoe. With that next cigarette between his fingers, Georg found his bronze lighter as well. A happier time for you as well.
The end smoldering with his first breath through the filter, Georg turned around. Leon was leaning back in his own chair, just watching. Waiting, he supposed as he returned his attention to the bookcase. He took another few steps along the wall, now peering at a picture of an even younger man in a fine suit, his arm around a woman just as young in what must have been a shining white dress, a bouquet overflowing with white flowers in her hands. That might as well have been us, darling. "I need your—help to…" Georg gulped down another mouthful of smoke, wishing it wasn't too early for a glass of brandy. "To address something."
Leon shifted forward on his chair to tap off his own cigarette. "That's why you retain my services."
Another few steps brought Georg to the far wall of the small office opposite the door to the road. He turned around, now retracing his path. "I need you…" And now, he stopped, his eyes caught on one final photograph. The two girls—one already at Leon's shoulder, the other not far behind—and the two boys in suits a little too tight about the middle, all simply peering at the camera. No smiles, no joy. Leon with his hair now marked with what must be a little grey (it was all Georg could imagine through the black and white), his arm around a different woman. Taller than Kathe had been and younger. She was slimmer without four children to spread her waist, her hair fairer but still not as light as Maria's would appear if it was captured through a camera lens, he was certain. "They're unhappy," he whispered under his breath, not wanting Leon to hear.
Sometimes, Georg thought the children didn't know he knew when he saw them about the villa whenever he failed to hide from the memories haunting every room and corridor. Whether it was in those brief moments he chanced an escape from his study or accidentally found himself at the dinner table—
"It can't be that much." Georg started as his lawyer's voice interrupted his thoughts. "You've never needed me to do much more than draw up contracts."
"So you know that for me?" Georg asked, finally returning to the desk and dropping into the chair.
"I don't know what you would expect me to think," Leon said around his cigarette. "You've hardly even asked me to look at the papers for your investments. You always said you have a friend in Vienna for that."
Georg sighed as he stifled this cigarette as well and fell back against the hard wooden chair. "Not quite for those. But I need you to file a round of divorce papers for me."
His lawyer's cigarette paused halfway to his mouth. "Divorce papers?"
Georg hardly felt himself nod. "Yes." God, it's humiliating.
"On behalf of a friend?" Leon shook his head as he stood. "That's a tall order to begin with, Georg, and I can't do that sight unseen—"
"Don't be daft. I wouldn't be here asking you if…"
"You'll have to enlighten me," Leon said after a moment, the cigarette at last caught in his mouth again.
"For me, Leon."
"You?" Leon shook his head as he dragged his chair closer to the desk with his free hand. "You could have asked me anything else and I think I would be less surprised."
"I'm as much a man as the next who will walk in—"
"Clearly." Leon now crushed his own cigarette into the ashtray then tossed the end in as well. "If all you needed was a woman in your bed, there's an entire profession devoted to that."
"I'm quite aware of that."
"Then what in God's name were you thinking?"
Georg thrust his hand into his pocket, his fingers first grazing his packet of cigarettes—the whistle buried deep along the bottom seam—before he found the ring he had twisted off earlier in the morning. It was so thin, so plain, so simple...A bit like you, Maria. Or at least my world when I'm with you. So much simpler than looking at the children, or wandering about Vienna with Elsa hanging on my arm. She can chatter like you when it suits her, but she's learned when to hold her tongue. A skill I don't think you've—
"Honestly, I thought better of you than that."
Georg chose a fresh cigarette instead and the lighter he had dropped onto the desk. "You don't know what it's—"
"Like hell I don't."
His hand cupped around the front end, Georg set his new cigarette alight. "No—"
"Christ's sake, you know I do. You were right there at her funeral, alongside Agathe."
How many years ago was it? Georg wondered, falling back in his chair again. At least three or four. I can't quite remember if Marta was born or if Agathe was still struggling with how ill she was. A quiet day in April, a grey spring sky overhead, and what seemed to be Leon's entire neighborhood clustered about Kathe's grave. Over the time gone, the memories had blurred—now marred by his own loss and grief and anger—but...those children. Just like ours were, darling. Clad all in black, even the girls' hair ribbons made of black satin. At least all four could stand in the graveyard, Marta and Gretl still had to be looked after at the back—
"Georg!"
Georg coughed, the smoke suddenly burning against the back of his throat. He hadn't even bothered with a glass of water before leaving the flat— God, after last night, it wasn't what he wanted to think about. Deep in his abdomen, his stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had escaped through the front door without eating a thing. "I'm not hear to be talked to like a child."
"Then what do you want me to do?"
"What I asked you to do before, a divorce decree." Georg leaned forward again, slamming a fist onto the desk, a few of the papers Leon had piled together a few minutes before scattering across the blotter. "Find me a way out."
Leon scarcely blinked, just pushing a few straggled bits of hair away from his forehead. "I'd have thought, a man like you, more than enough women would be willing to be your mistress. No need to marry again unless you wanted to."
Georg fell back in his chair anew, the thoughts from the winter chasing themselves around his head again. Elsa is more than willing. And he may have kept his thoughts to himself so far, but it won't be too long until Max begins to ask when I'll be wanting to bring her to Salzburg, to the villa to meet the children. He snorted as he drew another mouthful of smoke and shoved one of the open sides of his coat aside, tucking it into the little hollow between the armrest and his flank, almost pinning it down by his elbow. And undoubtedly suggest himself as a chaperone. He's certainly learned to appreciate my wine cellar over the years. He let out a breath laced with grey. And Elsa, she was more than happy to invite me into her bed just...two or three months after we said farewell. But then, there's you, Maria. You never would—never did, it was almost laughable, how you pushed me away. You never saw Elsa's corner of Vienna, I'm certain—
"Georg—"
"She's not like that," he said softly.
"Most women would be."
Georg shook his head again with a quick wince as the starched lining the inside of his collar scratched at his neck. "She isn't—wouldn't."
"Strange one, then," Leon muttered as he reached for the spread of papers. He picked up this one—chose that one—tossed this one aside—at last shuffling them into a new pile. "I don't think you quite know how many women whispered how jealous they were to Kathe."
"Another reason I would never have looked at them even before Agathe and I were married." Georg had his hand in his pocket again, rolling his wedding ring from one deep corner to the other. "But it's too much time spent with her god, I think."
"What do you mean?" Leon asked as he straightened the fresh stack of documents.
"Exactly what I said."
His friend slammed his own hand on the desk blotter, finally ripping his spectacles away. "Surely you didn't make that mistake, with all the noise from Germany—"
"You know I don't subscribe to anything they have to say."
"Then explain yourself exactly."
Georg took his hand from his pocket, that ring clutched in his folded hand. "Too much time in the Catholic church."
Leon dropped his spectacles atop those papers, a hand pressed to his eyes for a moment. "For God's sake," he murmured as he was on his feet again, walking away from his desk toward that same bookcase along the wall. He almost slammed that hand onto a shelf, dropped his head back for a second. "You have to think for once, Georg, especially before you do something like this. I don't think you have since you lost Agathe."
Georg tightened his fist; there would be a mark in his palm from that little band when he opened his hand again. "I can do that very well—"
Peering at one of those pictures—the family portrait with his second wife, Georg saw—Leon said, "Or perhaps you should ask before you leap into something this foolish. Is she a member?"
His eyes narrowed as he rid his cigarette of the next round of ash and brought it back to his lips. "I suppose so, she still spends nearly every Sunday there."
Leon turned around, his arms crossed on his chest. "Then there's nothing I can do, even if you had grounds for it." The lawyer narrowed his eyes. "And if you haven't given me anything to cite yet, I doubt you do."
"What do you mean?"
"Well and truly nothing."
"It wasn't a church wedding—"
"It doesn't matter," Leon snapped. "There's nothing you can do about it now, if she is in fact a member."
"I don't understand what you mean."
He was walking back to his desk, a hand now tucked into one of his waistcoat's small pockets. "Don't be an ass."
"Leon—"
"You know as well as I do that I couldn't file the paperwork just because you've asked for it, not unless you're willing to accuse her of something." He dropped back into his chair, not bothering to reach for even a blank page and pen. "Like it or not, the Catholic church still has more power than it deserves. Even if it was just a secretary or a clerk in the courthouse—just a simple document and no priest to bless it—there's no divorce decree that can be issued."
Georg shook his hand, the cigarette already burning down toward his fingers. One or two breaths through it were probably all that were left. "You can't mean that."
Leon shrugged, turning his gaze back to the books along that far wall. "If you like, I can find it one of those books. But my hands are tied until the whole damn thing is run out of the country. You're married to her for life."
He took those two breaths in rapid succession, not bothering to smash it to death this time, just tossing it into the ashtray. "Surely enough schillings—"
"I may not be the Catholic she is, but I do have a conscience. Kathe is a few years in the ground, but she would never forgive me if she had heard that."
"There are other lawyers—"
"And too many Catholics who think themselves good enough to refuse the money."
"Damn fools," Georg muttered.
"And it could mean the end of my career as well, Georg. Again, you have to think."
He didn't answer, and as silence fell, Leon just watching him through the lingering haze, his fingers drumming away on the edge of his desk. The polish was worn thin there, just like the opposite edge where his clients sat. Many a man across from him did the same as they waited for him to draft a document or two, some simply gripping the beveled edge as though holding on like a man flailing about in a maelstrom. God, Georg, he thought, it can all be so simple if you'll let it be. "Your children are lonely, I'm sure," he said softly.
A rough growl rose in Georg's throat. "Leon—"
"Why not take her home to them? They would probably like to have a new mother—"
"Their mother is dead—"
"My children needed some time to grow used to Ilse—"
"Don't say that name!" Georg snapped. "It's too close…" Those telegrams from Vienna were the hardest to read. Max rarely sent anything; he never had over the years, but they had dwindled even further the last months. He was too busy working to uncover some talent to exploit and free him from his desk at the bank and the doldrums of accounts and money that wasn't his. But the few from Elsa that the messenger boys on their bikes still delivered to be bundled with letters and postcards ...Georg despised them, every word she crammed into a few short sentences. Some of those days and nights in Vienna all those months ago, he hated her townhouse. Pristine, everything in order, nothing out of place. Not a memory to be seen or felt, no life lived...Other days, it had been a relief: blank, almost empty despite the antiques and lavish furniture, the ironed linen curtains and thousand count sheets on every bed. And then Elsa herself...Georg never quite knew how he to feel those evenings when he rolled away from her. Indulging himself in her body earlier in the year, the very end of the one before, he forgot himself—everything. And other days, even now when his mind occasionally drifted, all he could remember were the handful of parties in Vienna: Elsa and her husband when he was still alive, Agathe on his own arm, and the little chatter back and forth between two women who had known each other for years. "You're nothing like her, darling," he whispered. (Leon probably hadn't heard a word.) "You'll never be—"
"Georg, it's her name." The memories vanished as Leon's voice cut into his thoughts. "After the first few months, they were been happy to have Ilse in our house."
"I can't do that," Georg hissed, now on his feet. "I could never do that."
"Why on earth not?"
Why not? Whenever I forgot myself and was trapped at the dinner table with them, I saw their faces and the sadness. Missing her—missing me. And how to explain to them, why I had to leave—why her...He had to walk away just now, hands in his jacket pockets as either half flapped with each step. "They'll never forgive me."
"Why? Georg, I've been your friend for years."
His fingers were playing with his ring again. "My chain," he muttered. "Sometimes, I can't understand how willing I was—"
"What are you talking about now?"
He turned around again, now rolling the thin band between his fingers, the gold glinting in the office light. Such a little thing to hold me fast. And without it, no one would ever know to think anything else. God, to have just let it be. "When I met her—the first time. Hardly into January, just a few months after..."
"Agathe died," Leon finished softly.
Georg nodded, trying not to listen to Leon's sigh. "Yes. And…"
His friend folded his hands together again, finally reaching for pen and paper. "There's something else you're not telling me."
"I'm going on twenty this year, come the end of summer."
God, I should have walked away when I still had the chance. All she did was tell me her name—what did it mean to me? I don't even know what I wanted when I did. And now, there's really knowing how it all might end, not only—
"Georg!"
He peered down at his ring, nothing like the one he had thrown aside so many months ago. This one might as well have been a child's plaything. "It's just so hard to know how it all began, really."
"It hardly matters, now that you're here in my office."
Georg clenched his fist, the metal cutting away at his palm once more. "She's hardly twenty, just last week." That's all. Don't ask me anymore, about all those other ties that bind now. "Barely older than Liesl."
"God," he heard Leon whisper. "How many times have you taken that ring off in…how long?"
"About three months."
Leon threw his pen to the side of his desk, his papers scattering again. "You really are a fool."
"I didn't come here for this, Leon—"
"What do you expect me to say? What do you expect me to tell you to do, just walk away?"
"No!" Striding back to the front of the desk, Georg slammed his empty palm onto the edge, a painful tingle rising up along his arm to his elbow. "But something useful!"
"Then sit down, if you want me to try to find another way out for you!"
Georg complied, jacket hems caught under his arms against the armrests. He slipped his hand back into his pocket, dropping the ring and scrounging for another cigarette— He bit down on his lip harder than he meant. The package was nearly empty; he would have to stop at the tobacconist before he returned to the flat for the day...whenever that was.
"Does she even know who you are?"
Georg nodded as he pulled his hand free from his pocket, now folding his fingers together atop one thigh. "She was right beside me as we signed the papers—"
"That's not what I was asking." Leaning back, Leon peered up at the ceiling for a moment, rolling the fingers of his right hand across the same's thumb. "Twenty, you said?" Georg nodded again. God, what time was it? His eyes flickered back and forth for a clock. When the school year began, it would be just as it had been through the summer, his little wife locked up in her classroom, away from him...or perhaps instead, he would simply be free of her.
"Georg, I need you for at least a few moments." His friend was sitting straight now, pen back in his hand as he swiftly scribbled on that piece of paper. "She would be too young to remember, even if anyone read her the newspapers about the war."
"I hated those, you know I did," Georg muttered with scowl.
"That's not important. Have you told her?"
"Told her what?"
Leon snorted as he almost scratched the pen's nib through the paper onto the blotter. "All you did during the war?" Georg didn't answer, just tightening his knitted fingers, a few white patches blooming on his knuckles. "Goddammit, what did you say?"
He sat straight once more, breaking his hands apart to tuck the sides of his jacket into his sides again. "She's well aware I served in the navy—it might have been the first thing that drew her to me—"
"That's not what I asked. What did you tell her?"
"I was a sailor—"
"Any mention of your commission?" Leon asked as he dropped his pen, rubbing his eyes again. His friend hadn't noticed the ink on one of his fingers; it left a faint smudge at the far corner of his left eye. "Captaining a submarine? Your decorations as the dread of the—"
"You don't need—"
"It's important and you know—"
"A captain is still a sailor—"
"Georg!"
He sighed, both hands now grasping the armrests on the stiff wooden chair. "What?" Georg finally whispered.
"If you didn't tell her anything else—you just told her you were a sailor...Why would she think you were anything but a common sailor listening to a captain bark orders? Just the way you used to!"
"She never asked—"
"She wouldn't have any reason to ask if you didn't give her a reason. A lie by omission is still a lie." His hands together, Leon pressed them to his lips, his fingertips tapping away as Georg heard him mumbling to himself. "Perhaps...could be...out…"
Whatever he was saying was a muffled jumble to Georg. "I can't understand you, and I don't pay your fees just for your company."
"It's all I can think of for you, Georg."
"What?"
Leon dropped his hands to his desk, pushing himself up from his chair. "A marriage contracted through deception is barely valid on its face." Just a few quick steps took him to that bookcase and he slid one of the photographs to the side. He pulled one of those thick books out with a finger hooked over the top of the spine; with a quick glance at the title, he shoved it back and then reached for the one beside it. It must still be the wrong one, Georg supposed as he stood as well, the other man pushing this one back as well. "God, I haven't to read up on this for years," he went on as he drew the next volume from the row. This one he finally opened, lingering at the front before shuffling a handful of pages aside. He paused for another moment, then flipped farther back—now peering up at the ceiling, almost muttering to himself. "It wouldn't be too hard to file that paperwork," Leon said, louder now as he snapped the heavy book closed, "to assert that you coerced her."
Georg shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, his heart rate rising as he breathed a little quicker. His hands would be curled into fists otherwise, fingernails almost cutting into his palms. Instead, they were clutching at the lining. "I did nothing of the sort—"
"You didn't force her hand, I know—I've known you to long to think that."
"Then what do you mean?" he hissed, quickly walking across the office, now just a foot or two from Leon. "I know the seas well, but the law is your expertise."
"It's a simple matter of words to call everything you told her—or didn't tell her—a pattern of coercion," Leon answered quietly as he tucked the book back to its place on the shelf. "It's voidable with a simple petition—from either of you." He tugged at his tie clip for a moment before he stepped back, not noticing how it left the black tie crooked against his waistcoat. "I can do that for you, file the petition to have the marriage annulled."
Georg shook his head. Not that, not now. "No—"
"It will be as though your marriage never took place at—"
"No!"
One of Leon's eyebrows rose as he folded his arms across his chest. "You'll have to explain, then."
"I can't—"
"For a man so desperate to end his marriage, you're not even listening to a friend's advice."
"It can't happen, not like that," he murmured as he turned away, pulling his hands free and running one through his hair. God, he would be a mess when he finally escaped onto the street.
"Are you too proud for that?"
I know what it would mean, darling, Georg thought, finally surrendering to one of those final cigarettes in his jacket pocket before returning to the desk for his forgotten lighter. His hand trembled as he flicked the grooved wheel against the flint—now a second time as the first flame burnt itself out. You don't know, Maria. Any of it. What it would mean for you, for...Christ, it's almost enough to turn my stomach.
Following him back to his desk, Leon said, "It's the most sense I can give you." He settled one hand on Georg's shoulder. "But if you don't want to hear that, there's not anything for me to say." Taking back his hand, he began to walk around the desk, back to his chair and his notes. "You don't have any other options!"
Georg took a vicious breath of smoke; he released it so quickly, it seared the inside of his nostrils. "I told you, I'm not here for a lecture—"
"It's not." Leon pulled his chair back, dropping into it with a gentle sigh. He reached for his page of notes—really a few words smeared across the paper—and folded it in half, ready to be filed with his collection from countless meetings that had yielded no fruit. "Georg, I don't know what you want me to say. There's nothing else I can do, not without...Not without...I'm sorry, I can't do what you're asking for."
O O O
Georg couldn't quite bring himself to open the car door, to fold himself into the driver's seat behind the scratched steering wheel and throw his hat onto the empty passenger seat. (He hadn't even bothered to put it on his head.) The sidewalk was more crowded, the small hand on the clock at the top of Nonnberg's bell tower probably nearing the ten o'clock mark. The sun had certainly risen high enough, and before he had taken to living on ships that sailed beneath the ocean waves, Georg had learned to make a rough judgment of the local time from much less.
He strode along the very edge of the street, nearly on the uneven stones for car tires rather than the smoother path meant men's sturdy boots and women's dainty shoes. He was going the wrong way, but Georg simply continued to push his way between the other men in suits and hats, and women in their tailored dresses. The car was a block or two in the other direction, but it could wait, he had decided that as he slammed Leon's door closed. God, he can't quite be right, Georg thought as he reached the next crossroads, not bothering to stop to glance about for a car barreling from a curve in one of the ancient streets.
It wouldn't really matter, would it? he thought as an old truck rushed past just behind him—probably bearing a delivery for one of the elegant shops surrounding Leon's office—horn blaring as the air rustled his coat. I'm hardly a father right now—and Maria is hardly a wife, no matter what she thinks. His shoulder knocked into someone walking the opposite direction, but Georg didn't stop to apologize. If I haven't apologized to any of them, why bother with you?
He lost track of the time, turning onto some of the smaller streets that darted between rows of yet more shops and offices, now into an alley. The backs of the buildings were dirtier than the façades on the main roads, a few of the doors almost buried by wooden crates and metal cases, the clutter around one almost spilling into the middle of the narrow road. It was quiet, just a few echoes of the city's bustling life stalking him as Salzburg's veneer slipped away. So still, it was almost difficult to breathe, the air heavier, nearly a humming in his ears as they searched for any sound apart from the occasional skittering of tiny rodent feet amongst the leftover boxes behind the shops and cafés.
He couldn't stand it any longer, his hand already digging into his pocket for another of those dwindling cigarettes, the cigarette caught between two fingers and his lighter tucked between his thumb and palm. Really, there had to be a tobacconist nearby, someplace to purchase another package or two to calm his nerves. But a quick flame against the end was enough for the moment, a first mouthful of smoke slowing the thoughts, the first rush of nicotine soon to calm the slight trembling of his hands.
The alley was coming to an end, one of the old city's streets now running across his path. Georg didn't see any cars, only heard a few from a distance. Turning his head, he just saw the very end of a car disappearing behind the fresh row of buildings, still the worn stones and unpainted wood the good people of Salzburg rarely saw. But it wouldn't be too far until he reached the next main street—left that little bit of quiet behind for another cluttered road. He had walked it before, Georg was certain, possibly with Agathe, but more likely alone. She had grown used to spending most of her time at the villa looking after their growing brood, the older children learning to be at arm's length for a little while as the newest baby demanded most of her attention. Even he had begun to spend so much time within those walls, preferring the little world they had created behind the iron gates and across the lake to the other side of the grounds where the forest devoured the open air.
Too many people, Georg thought. He flicked the last end of his cigarette away, then drew his elbows in to his sides, though he still knocked one into a man with a hat almost like his own set just to the side of his head over one ear. With a snort of laughter, he bit his lip without turning back to apologize. It seemed familiar, something deep in his memory, perhaps even from his childhood. Something you would probably know better than I do, Maria.
Another block or two only brought more people, both coming toward him and spilling in from the streets that fed into the intersections that broke up the flow like a dam across a river. The noise swelled, a cacophony he couldn't block out—couldn't repress as it only grew louder. Christ, not a one would survive a ship or submarine! He still stumbled along, coat flapping as he walked faster and his heart began to race. Too many people—far too many people, more than he had seen since that day in Aigen as her coffin finally vanished into the earth. Too much, he thought as he ducked into an alley—
Or perhaps not an alley, he wondered. It was empty with a few windows here and there on either side as the buildings closed in, the walls too clean and bright for an alley. A stone arch running between them at the far end of the lane—white washed and plastered as well—and an ornate dark iron gate opened beneath it. The din was all behind him, no movement to be seen ahead, just enormous and miniature stones ahead. Another cemetery, Georg thought as quicker footsteps took him through the archway. A thick band of shadow coated him, the growing warmth of the day briefly dwindling as the sun waited for him.
It burned again, though it was only the backs of his hands and his face exposed to feel the heat. He stepped back into the shade with a small stumble, the tip of his shoe snagging against a a paving stone. They were a mix of muted colors, red and grey and cream faded and burnt over the years, even cracking here and there. I suppose just like some of the thicker plaster on the outside of the villa, even if it's taken much longer, Georg thought as he lifted his gaze, ears pricking for any sound but the dull roar from the street. The wind and the rain, the snow whenever we have it. All the things I suppose you'll like, Maria, if I'll let you outside when they arrive this winter.
It was all still here, the church enclosing the cemetery quiet in the middle of a late Wednesday morning. And the walls must be thick enough to contain any of those ramblings you love, if they bother on a day like today. Georg snorted as his eyes rose along the plaster that might once have been yellow but had long ago faded to something that wasn't quite cream. The open corridor that hugged the perimeter had fared better out of the sun's worst light, square capped pillars and arches beneath hammered tiles long ago tarnished with the wind and rain. The long windows above wore swirls and arches of their own as they glittered in the sun, any priests or deacons in the hallway hidden by the glare.
Georg stepped out from the shade and tile to the grass that spread across the way, tinged brown as it struggled to grow despite its summery thirst. The rippling sea was broken here and there by brown dirt paths—well, only two or three—and the grey stones and monuments that always found their home in a cemetery. Some were tall and ornate, weathered by the same storms that had battered the upper walls that hid them from the rest of the city, though others were merely crosses jutting from the ground.
Making his way along the path, Georg lingered now and then amongst the trees, the branches laden with full flushes of brilliant leaves despite the parched ground beneath. Even the air was thick, like it was filled with the mustiness of the bodies slumbering beneath the earth. Just like you, darling, he thought as he passed by a few of the larger markers near the center of the graveyard. Whenever her forbidden memory flooded his mind, Georg always remembered her young and untouched by what lay at the end. That girl across the ballroom, the young woman he had woken to that morning and left behind hardly a week later when the navy demanded him again. The way you'll always be, he went on to himself as he settled on the edge of one of those monuments and tossed the back of his jacket free before he crushed it into the raised stone that probably marked the boundaries of the dead.
Bones by now sitting in moldy wooden caskets if they had even survived the centuries of snow and mud seeping through the soil. Just like those men...They huddled in their ships in the mud on the sea floor, perhaps jostled and rocked by the deep currents— Georg shook his head, hands now folded and his elbows as he leaned forward. Just like you, love. It's where it all began, didn't it? Beautiful and wonderful, and gone too soon. He blinked harshly, barely catching the start of a few hot tears. Christ, not here!
He had never been able to go after the dirt was tossed atop her coffin, the graveyard at the side of Aigen's small parish church. It would never grow thick with as many companions as those ancient stones probably expected, too many of the young men from the small streets and pockets of houses lying somewhere else for the rest of time, either strewn across Europe or sunk into the ocean. Just little markers with names and dates if their families could afford them. It will be more women like you, too stubborn to leave the sick to the nurses and doctors! With almost a growl, Georg clambered to his feet, his backside chilly from the cold stone.
I didn't want her, darling—I don't want her—but you're too strong in my mind without someone else to stand in your place, at least as much as she can. And I can't reach you, not anymore. As he took to the dusty path again, the craving was scorching his chest again. The longest fingers on his right hand were twitching and he shoved them into his pocket, desperate and scrabbling for one of those last cigarettes. It wouldn't do here, he knew. The dead wouldn't care, but the dry grass wouldn't care for faintest ash—
It was tumbling against his palm, that thin gold ring Maria had slipped onto his finger with quivering hands just next to the Salzach without any curious eyes to see and remember. It must be why they expect it, Georg thought as he pulled it free and into the sun, the gold glinting brightly for the first time that morning. No knowing the beginning, no end in sight...Clenching his fist, he shoved it back into his pocket. His knuckles knocked at the whistle, though the curves were too smooth and gentle to scratch at his skin as he yanked his empty hand back.
There's always an end, but is it really all there is? Georg wondered as the dirt path returned to that little perimeter walk away and the chipped stones. Just that way out? Along the wall that held the noise of the city at bay, the carvings of Mary with her child peered out marble—angels and cherubim he hadn't considered since his childhood gazed down with blank eyes...And the skull, bare like the flesh had been gnawed away, the serpent crawling through one empty socket, mouth open as it slithered across the crown of a long dead man's head. He shivered as he hurried on, now passing dark crosses flush against that wall between the sculpted scenes of angels and saints he didn't know or understand. God, Maria, you would find your own strange peace here.
"Maria," he whispered as he stepped through the gate back into Salzburg and left the slumbering dead behind. The city's noise crashed over him, almost washing the peace and quiet away, every word spoken and shouted in Leon's office rising again. "You were my distraction, Maria, and now you're my problem. Both of you." He surrendered at last, one of those final cigarettes and his lighter in his hand, the welcome burn calming him in an instant.
"There's nothing else I can do."
He couldn't go along with Leon's suggestion, Georg already knew that. The mere thought of annulling the marriage hadn't even crossed his mind, but he knew the consequences for both Maria and the child as soon as Leon offered it. "It would be as though it never happened," he muttered around the end of his cigarette. "Like…" Like you had just let me take you into my bed—or simply had my way with you that afternoon the first time I ever had you beneath me the way you love it now. But been even more careless than I have been this summer. Another exhale of breath only increased the haze about him as he made his way through the first city dwellers he had seen since the cemetery and church finally gave him up. Tradesmen by the grime under their fingernails and shirts and trousers that had seen better days, their services for the businesses and cafés always hidden from the view on the street. You'd be more at home here, Maria, in this church and with the women these men must have in their own houses. I can't even imagine you standing in my front hall, somehow come as a teacher for the children, let alone as my wife!
The busier city streets were nearer, the din of cars and trucks and buses overwhelming the pedestrians going this way and that. Men possibly hurrying home for a lunch their wives had to lay across the table and women wealthy enough not to worry about such simple things enjoying a walk before a waiter laid a table for them with bone china plates and shined silverware. Not for me today, he thought as his pace slowed. I can't, not today, not when all I need to do is think.
"It can't be done," he whispered as he pulled his cigarette free from his lips. His footsteps slowed even more, now stopped as he leaned back against the rough stone wall. No smooth plaster here, just more unpolished stone. "Not now." Even if he prevaricated to obtain a divorce decree, swore a false oath to assign her some blame...Georg knew what that did to a woman's name, how it would haunt her. "No," he said with a shake of his head. "Christ, if I do that, I'll never see her again—" He bit at his lip hard. What does that matter, in the end?
But it didn't matter how it would spoil her reputation, if Leon was right. No way out, really, just like I was on a sinking ship. It would be a different lie, something to condemn him, as though they had never even met at all. Easier, really, nothing left to tie her to him, just the memories of the love she thought they had shared...Except for the child he knew she didn't quite realize was already growing in her womb.
"No," he hissed again. All those years before he found himself almost besotted with Agathe—far more than besotted—he had played his hand with caution when it came to women. Never the cheapest girl in the tattiest dress, and never taking the chance of leaving a child behind in a port he might never visit again. By signing that paper, everything would return to the way it was before, the certificate signed in the clerk's office and the words exchanged would all meaningless. He'll be a bastard. No father to be seen and an unwed mother. Georg took another breath through his cigarette, his hands still quivering a little. That might be worse than any shame following her after a divorce. Our marriage disappearing like a candle at the end of the night won't see him disappear as well.
Georg's head lolled back to the filthy wall for a moment, and he cringed at the crags digging through his hair into the back of his head. He would comb it out sometime this evening, but his fingers would have to do for now. I can almost imagine what he would look like, darling. Sandy hair and taller than I suspect Kurt will— He shook his head, just remembering to pull his head from the wall. I can't think about them here, but I know I'll have to send for them soon. Georg threw himself forward, though he still couldn't quite begin to wander down the narrow street yet. But blue eyes, Maria, I know, no chance of anything else...He flicked the smoldering cigarette away into the street, the orange glow brightening for a moment before fading to grey, then white. He's the last thing I need from you, a child wailing as he makes his way into the world.
You don't know, I know you can't. You're very bright, Maria, at least in your own way, but if you don't have any family you wanted to have at our wedding, I doubt you were close enough to any woman to know anything but the most basic signs you learned from a science book. I've seen it all before, and even I wouldn't have thought much of it if you weren't so tired, if we—I hadn't almost been fooled before. And even if it wasn't so apparent, at least to me, to file that petition Leon suggested...His mouth was parched and scratchy, dried by so many cigarettes without even a cup of coffee to wash the drought away, let alone a glass of water. You'll have to know. All of it. My name, why...Georg shook his head again, a little pebble of the stone wall tumbling free from his hair and lodging behind his collar. You won't stop with the questions, I know that, whether I should give you the answers or not. You don't need to know all of it. Least of all why.
His stomach was beginning to complain; it must have been as he dallied in the cemetery, too lost in his thoughts and the quiet. I'm sure I'll find a café as I'm wandering back to the car, Georg told himself. He mostly remembered the intersection near Leon's office where he had left it, and the closer he was, he would remember it more. You'll have to forgive me someday, Maria. No matter how happy you think you are, it's not quite what you think. He took a first step into the new current of pedestrians, finding his place in the swiftly moving queue. A marriage in the dark is no marriage at all. Why pretend at all?
O O O
That afternoon, the flat
Maria rolled her shoulders back, twisted her neck this way and then the other against a little ache. She hadn't had a chance to look through her roster of students, let alone even try to learn their names. "Not that I would have managed to," she whispered as she sat straight. Her mind had been too muddled the entire day.
She hadn't needed Georg to persuade her to go back to bed that morning; he could hardly have been out the front door into the common corridor—perhaps making his way down the staircase—before she was already asleep again. By the time she finally opened her eyes again, pushed herself up with her back to the wall, the sun had burnt a path across the room, so brutal she could hardly open her eyes without a twinge of pain. But at least now, sitting up was easy. Despite her quiet protests when he was already dressed, her stomach was still reeling a little from the night before. When she had finally made it to her feet—well past ten, according to the little clock in the front room—all Maria noticed was a little trickle of sweat down her back and the damp beneath her arms.
She couldn't quite blame it on a late morning, Maria knew that as she pushed one paper aside, almost into her water glass. Even after a quick breakfast roused her—she hadn't been very hungry this morning before she went to the market—she had struggled to keep herself on task. Sometimes over the last few days, she hadn't been able to stop herself from wondering where Georg went during the day. Nothing quite made sense, though she did stop herself from following her wildest daydreams. He had seemed almost...irritated the day before his last short trip, impatient as he stayed in for the day with her, sequestered in the front room with one of those books whilst she began taking her first notes for the upcoming term.
From somewhere near the base of her spine, Maria heard a gentle crack; she shook her head, almost shaking the memories and little questions away. "Always be sure to sit up straight, Maria. What will your teachers think of you if you're always slouching like that?"
"I suppose you were right, Mother." One hand around the base of her neck, Maria pinched at the muscle, the knot only throbbing a little worse. "I forgot like I did when I was younger—when I was worried over my schoolwork." She blinked harshly; her words were suddenly difficult to read, almost blurry as a thin film settled over her vision. The heel of her hand against her right eye, Maria scrubbed against the fog, then wiping at her left with the side of her index finger.
"Well, I don't think I'll be able to do much more." Dropping her hand, Maria blinked again before thrusting her arm in the air. The stiffness in her elbow spread from the joint for a second before she bent it, settling her forearm atop her head for a second. "I already made all the notes I can before my first class—and maybe tomorrow I'll be able to think properly if I want to learn their names. But I suppose it will be easier once I meet all of them anyway."
Maria turned in her chair toward the back of the kitchen and the corridor, one of the floorboards creaking. I don't hear him, she thought as she spun back around with a wince, the darts at the waist of her dark blue dress suddenly a little tighter. A gentle cough deep in her lungs was enough for her abdomen to push up against the seams. Shaking her head again, she shuffled her papers together, the class roster with that alphabetical list of names on the very top.
"I might as well finish this," she said as she stretched her arm across the table. She had forgotten about the letter she had begun last night, interrupted by Georg and...The burn was already covering her cheeks, Maria knew. Two months still weren't enough to completely banish the embarrassment, the little churning in her stomach when she thought about how eagerly she gave in to his every desire. Quickly biting her lip, she grabbed the half-finished letter and the pen, her eyes running across everything she wrote the night before.
Mother,
I know it's been too long since I've written. Sometimes, it feels like life just comes and goes so strangely, now. Between my tutoring, Georg needing to look after some sort of business, and trying to find time to spend with him, it feels like there's no time left over.
I worry about him, sometimes. He's quieter than I wish, as though there's something he doesn't want to face or think about. I hope he'll tell me soon. He's been gone since yesterday morning, he should be home some time this evening. It's one of my favorite times, when he comes home at night if he's been gone. He doesn't come and go nearly so much as Father, but it does get lonesome at nights when I'm waiting—
The last word was smeared and nearly illegible, Georg's arms around her chest had startled her so much. She scratched out the last few words before moving to the blank page just below.
I was writing this letter last night when Georg came home. He surprised me the way he always likes to, it's a little silly, sometimes. I don't know why. He's always so serious, but I suppose I already told you that. Maybe it was the war, it couldn't have been a pleasant thing to experience. But when he talks to me about it, he mostly talks about the ocean. Perhaps we'll go to the ocean someday, I know I wrote you about how we went to Attersee for a day...months ago. It must be so much more than that, and I could scarcely believe how much there was of that.
But I'll have to end here, Mother, you can see I'm nearly out of paper. It will be time to look after dinner soon. There was no veal at the shop today, so I'll have to make do with pork even though I know it's not Georg's favorite. I am learning, I really am, though I don't think you would be impressed. I will try to write you more often, but the fall term will begin next week. I'll have to give the headmaster my new surname, and I know I should have done so already. I'm not his favorite teacher in the school, but I don't think he'll do much more than scowl.
Please give my love to Aunt Hannah and Uncle Josef as well.
Maria
The pen tumbling out of her hand, a little drop of black ink pooling from the nib onto the table, Maria brought the bottom edge of her letter up. She ran her thumb across the fold, a harsh crease forming, then pulled the top down to meet it, making this fold with a finger. "I'll send it to Vienna tomorrow," she said softly as she leaned back in her chair. The mail was long gone for the day, but she was too tired to walk to the local post office anyway.
She stretched her arm up over her head again, now pressing her cheek to her dress sleeve. The fabric was heavy and gently scratching at her face before she ran her hand around her head to tug away the first pins holding her hair up. She dropped them onto the table one by one with a quick wince, a few long strands of broken hair tangled into their teeth. "I must have pulled it too tight this morning." Despite spending half the morning in bed chasing the rest of the night's sleep she had missed through the night, a faint ache had been throbbing at the back of her skull, finally easing little by little as her hair fell down around her shoulders. Maria ran her hands through it, her fingers snagging on a couple of small knots she must have missed in the morning with her comb.
A mistake, Maria decided after another few minutes of leaning back in the stiff kitchen chair, squirming this way and that as her backside and shoulders ached. The gentle pain in her head had ebbed away with the tightness of that knot of hair gone, but now it just caught the afternoon heat against her skin. Pushing herself forward, elbows hitting the table's edge with a brief tingle, she rubbed her fingers against her eyes once more, chin balanced on the heels of her hands for a moment. She reached back around her neck again, a little line of sweat coming away on her palm.
Why am I so tired? she wondered as she swept her hair forward and over one shoulder. I've never been like this before, not when I was studying for my last exams in college. Not even when I could hardly afford my own dinner. Maria pushed her chair away from the table, her letter forgotten for the moment. I don't want to spoil my sleep tonight, but I just need to lie down for a while.
She slipped off her shoes before she stood, crouching down to pick them up by the back heels with one hand, the other holding the rounded table edge before she scraped her hairpins off the edge; she just caught them before they tumbled onto the floor. Even her feet were aching a little, though she had hardly done anything but sit at her table with her notes for the upcoming school term. After a slow walk down the corridor to their bedroom, Maria dropped them just beside the door, not bothering to right the one that landed on its side; with the bed's top sheet tossed aside, she nearly fell into bed. Already lying back on her pillow—the edge in the middle cramped up against Georg's—Maria didn't pull the sheet back up and over her dress, instead curling her legs up against her belly. I just don't want to feel sick again, she thought as she ran a finger beneath her dress's collar. The sweat caught between her neck and hair had soaked right in rather than slipping down her back like that morning. Closing her eyes, Maria wrapped one arm around her knees.
"Is this what it will be like?" she whispered, not quite sure why. Georg wasn't home to hear her ask herself anything, but she couldn't even say the rest aloud to the empty flat, the silence clinging to the air. Even with the bedroom window still open from when she had finally set her feet on the floor that morning, there wasn't even the slightest breeze to cut through the stagnancy and eat away at another round of perspiration on her forehead. Is this what it will be like when I'm finally with child? She bit at her lip, almost smiling despite the heat. I suppose it will be, at least something like this.
Maria could never tell Georg what she dreamed now and then; he would probably think it was too soon, that she was too young, though he hadn't teased her for being a child herself for...she had forgotten the last time. But sometimes when she slept, her little wonderings were more than that when the stress of the day dwindled. A little boy of her own—their own—still damp and filthy from the birth. Dark hair she struggled to dry with the small blanket wrapped around his tiny arms and legs. Brilliant blue eyes wide open as he yawned and writhed against her embrace, suddenly crying as the colder air of their little bedroom finally rushed over his skin. A boy for you to raise into a man, even if he can't be a sailor like you.
She loosened her arms and stretched out her legs, that gentle stiffness in her joints still lingering as she pushed her dress and shift down from her hips. I know it's not that right now, Maria thought as she grabbed for her hair and pulled it from beneath her back. A finger caught at the very ends, ragged once more and needing a trim, she already had a few strands wrapped up, just spinning again and again. She closed her eyes, the sunshine too bright, just as it had been in the morning. My last time just ended a few days ago, so it can't be that, even if I almost wish it was. With a dig of her elbow into the smooth sheet and mattress below, Maria rolled onto her side, facing where Georg would sleep that night. I was too young when I left Mother's house to be told much of anything, and Aunt Hannah was almost too embarrassed herself when I needed to know something so simple. She shuddered, clenching her eyes even tighter. Or maybe you just didn't want me to know anything. About anything at all.
The corner of one eye was burning, a couple of small tears pooling—running across the bridge of her nose—now onto her pillowcase. Dragging her fingers from her hair, she wiped them away with the side of her hand. I don't know why you always come to mind. And somehow, when I can least stand the thought of you. A shuddering breath scratched at the back of her throat and Maria coughed for a few seconds, a strange chill running across her skin, almost down into her bones. She kicked at the top sheet with one foot, then again, the upper hem landing just at her waist—high enough that she could reach it and drag it up over her shoulders and up to her chin. It will all be right in an hour or so, she thought as she dropped her chin onto the sheet and the very top of her chest. All of it.
By the time Maria woke, the afternoon warmth had dissipated, the sun hung far lower in the sky and was beginning to burn orange and red as though sunset was already approaching. Whatever headache had niggled through the day was now throbbing on her forehead between her eyes. "It must have been the sun," she murmured as she threw the top sheet down—
She sneezed, a sudden waft of smoke tickling her nose. Georg, she thought, her hands already smoothing down her dress, desperately searching for every wrinkle. Oh, where was her hair band? Right there, just where she had dropped it when she had first tried to crawl from bed when she heard her husband first awake in the morning. Ignoring the little tangles from her last hours of tossing and turning, Maria quickly tamed her hair in a messy braid. She pushed herself up onto her feet, then dropped back down to the bed for another second, her vision briefly swimming. "Too fast," she said softly, one hand clutching at the sheet she had tucked around the lumps and bumps in the mattress after stripping the other set away to be laundered. "I just stood too fast, that's all."
The smoke grew thicker as she hurried down the corridor, a thick fog wafting from the front room. Maria waved one hand in front of her face; she couldn't quite breathe, it was so dense, nearly burning her eyes. "Georg?" She didn't hear an answer, though when she reached the end of the hall and took a first step into the room, she saw him. "Georg?"
Something had changed, Maria knew that even without seeing him clearly. He was always so...proper, she decided, like he was always prepared to meet that emperor from long ago. Whether it was as though he was ready to give a salute as she imagined sailors might—just like the soldiers she could just remember stalking through the edge of Vienna when she was a girl watching the very end of the war as she waited for her father—or with an answer to a question he hadn't yet been asked. But now...Her husband was leaning back in one of those chairs, the cushions somehow still stiff like they were brand new, one elbow hooked over an armrest. The other was propped on the heel of one of his shoes that he had atop his knee, and the cigarette pinched between two of his fingers was nearly burnt to the filter, almost ready to be crushed into the ashtray on the little table at his side, next to its predecessors. He didn't seem to be looking anywhere, though Maria couldn't quite follow his gaze through the haze, and his entire body looked almost loose and unfurled—but not at ease. "Georg?" she whispered.
He raised his head, drew the cigarette away from his mouth before he turned away, his gaze now out the window, the latch still holding it closed and the wretched haze in. He scratched at his collar as he sat straight, his foot slipping from his knee to the nicked floor. "What?"
Maria took a deep breath before she stepped into the denser grey cloud. "I'm sorry, I just didn't know you were back."
"I don't know why, I'm usually—home by now."
"Yes, but I was sleeping—"
"Are you that tired from doing nothing over the day?"
She stepped back, almost into the corridor. "I...I don't know, I was just tired again—"
"That's why I told you to go back to bed this morning!" he snapped as he stood, now reaching down to smash his cigarette to faint embers in the ashtray.
With another step, Maria felt one of her shoulder blades against the front room's wall. "I did. But...I just think it must be the next term coming up." Pulling her braid over her left shoulder, Maria couldn't stop herself, both hands now twisting in the very end, one finger yanking a thick strand of the plait free.
Georg was loosening the knot in his tie, either end of the black fabric hanging free around his neck, though still threaded beneath his shirt collar. "I suppose that's all it could be." A quick yank of his hand pulled it free and with the wider end crumpled in his fist, he wrapped the rest of it around without even looking down.
There was a fresh churning in her stomach, but this time Maria knew why. I don't know who you are right now, she thought as she tightened her free hand in the folds of her skirt."What are you...you don't make any sense, Georg." I don't know if I recognize you right now.
Her husband shook his head, his tie shoved roughly into his pocket; Maria thought she could just make out his hand fidgeting, like he was searching for something else. "You'll know soon enough—"
"That's what you said this morning—"
"Maria!"
Her body was flush against the whitewashed wall, from those bones in her back to the faint swell of her backside. The smoke still clung to the stagnant air and all Maria wanted to do was run to other side of the room and fling that window open. Not just to clear the grey cloud, but...she wasn't sure what else. Georg was coming closer, his hand still in his pocket; she thought he must not know half of the tie was peeking out, almost catching in the cuff of his shirt. "But…" Maria licked her lips, dry and chapped as she pressed one palm to the wall. "I just...why can't you just tell me whatever it is? I think it's troubling—"
"You'll have to forgive me—darling," Georg said, his hand suddenly free and folded around her chin and thumb against her lips. Leaning in to her, he brushed his mouth against her cheek, his fading cologne and the staid cloud of smoke melding together into the particular scent that always followed him. "There's just too much to worry about right now."
Maria had to take a deep breath—had to swallow against a sudden lump in her throat as her heart raced. "Still—business?"
He ran a finger along the center of her plait, down to the chunk loosened by her worried fingers as he nodded. "Yes."
"But why won't…" She shivered. "Why won't you tell me about it?"
Georg twisted that freed strand on his fingers, tugging at her braid. "Don't ask me, Maria. You know not to do that."
Maria bit her lip, desperate to stop her mouth and chin from quivering. I don't know you like this, Georg. You've never been this way before, not even when you're so quiet after a couple days away. You didn't even ask me, that night, you knew I wasn't frightened, not even of myself like I sometimes was before then. But…"I should…" But you're frightening me now. It's like you're a different man, like you're angrier than that night we met. Her hand shaking, Maria pulled her braid out of his grasp; he didn't try to hold it back. "I should start dinner—"
"It's nearly eight. It will be dark soon," Georg interrupted with a shake of his head as he stepped back. "I stopped by a café for dinner on the drive home." It was a lie, and he knew he would regret it as the night wore on. Nothing I haven't done before after all those years on ships and submarines. "But you need to look after yourself—darling."
"But what about you? I went to the butcher—"
"You'll need it soon."
Maria tucked one hand around her neck, something deep in her muscle beginning to ache as though she had slept on it poorly. "You're talking in riddles again—"
"Didn't I already tell you, you'll understand soon enough?" Georg turned away, already walking back across the front room back to his chair. The next craving was rising in his chest: a new cigarette and a glass of brandy to calm his nerves. "Just do as I tell you now. Make your own dinner and eat. All of it."
Despite her husband's demand that she eat, demanding it more than once as he passed by time and again in the small flat's only hallway, Maria struggled. Though she had found herself putting more on her plate little by little as the summer went on, it was still too much tonight. (Even now, she sometimes found herself only putting as much on her plate as she had for all those years in her uncle's house.) She hardly managed to finish the smaller of the two veal cutlets, let alone the larger one she had cooked alongside it; polishing off the bread she sliced from the loaf she had bought for the next morning was easier. Eventually, after asking twice, Georg sat down to a plate across from her, eating what remained of the meat so quickly, Maria was certain he couldn't have tasted any of it. He didn't even glance across the table at her, his gaze tied to a creased paper he pulled from one of the pockets inside his coat. She nearly asked what it was as she finished her glass of water, but bit her question back as he scowled when she knocked her glass against her plate.
Even slipping into bed next to Georg after they both changed into their nightclothes, Maria felt a strange nervousness twisting in her stomach; it didn't help the weight of her large dinner laying there like a millstone. None of the little touches she had grown to love over the past two and a half months, not even one of his snores occasionally breaking the oppressive quiet. She whispered his name once—twice—three times into the darkness, but his only response was to turn onto his side. Away from her. What have I done, Georg? she wondered, the sheet snugly pulled up to her chin, fingers tightly wrapped around the top edge. I don't understand why you're so far away when I just want to be close to you. Maria let out a long breath as she shifted, her back brushing against him as she curled her knees up to her chest. How can I know if you won't tell me?
Beside her, Georg winced as he felt the little bones in her spine rub against his night shirt. I told you that you'll know soon enough, he thought. Fighting—struggling—wanting to turn toward her, gather her up and push her onto her back. Make love to her until he was sated, no more consequences for his sins to be seen for months. Wait for her to sleep before he whispered to her that in only a few months, she might have a girl of her own to someday play with that ghastly doll she had set on the shelf at the top of the wardrobe.
No, he told himself, though he did finally roll onto his back. Georg closed his eyes tightly, not wanting to give himself even a moment to glance at his wife. The less you know, darling...Christ, maybe I just don't know how to tell you. I'll have to call myself a fool, unless I can do something. He scratched at one eye, an itch at the corner giving up a small tear as a stray fingernail snagged the tender skin there.
Maybe Leon is right, Georg went on, suddenly unable to help himself as he finally rolled over to her. He had to fold his hands together to keep his twitching fingers from wandering to her shoulders—her breasts—her belly set to swell in just a few months. You won't know until then, and I don't know how you'll do it, Maria. There's nothing to you, nowhere for you to carry my child, even less than she had when...Maybe it really is that simple, taking you with me someday. You'll need to understand how a child of your own differs from your students sooner than you could have imagined. Perhaps not even just the one you don't know is right here with us. Freeing a hand, Georg ran a finger along her spine. I don't think I'll know until I'm there, though. It's so strange to think about or know. He sighed with a little kiss pressed just above her nightdress. Just some time, it's all I can ask you for.
A/N: I'm pretty sure this would have been the situation around divorce in this time frame. I think I followed the train of thought in the secondary source I found, but if not...artistic license. If you feel like it, look up "Memory Of Love" on YouTube. It's from the April Snow soundtrack. Questionable plot, beautiful music.