Chapter 21: Preparations

The following Saturday, late April

Georg hadn't been into one of these shops in ages. It was one of the nicer establishments in sadder corner of Salzburg he had called home for most of these last months, that little patch where the tired roads met the nicer streets where money and men and women who spent it with no real concern lived. Well, not quite, he thought as the façades to either side suddenly turned even better kept. No more worn brick or peeling paint over old plaster on storefronts. Even the clothes on the other pedestrians he had passed were nicer: newer and more fashionable, but still nothing like he knew he would see in the quarters of Vienna he traipsed through whenever he visited. None of your homemade dresses here, Maria.

Maria— God, no, not right now, Georg told himself with a turn from where he had finally parked the car and killed the engine with a shift of his foot from the clutch, a little too distracted by the coming day's little adventure. It was too much to think of anything else, not Vienna in the slightest.

Not that Vienna mattered all that much, these days if he was honest, despite his extended weekend. The day after he left Maria on the street—a torturous walk to his flat had followed, to say nothing of the ages it seemed for his hand to relieve the pain burning at the top of his thighs—he had found himself on the way to Vienna, for the first time regretting his choice to leave his convertible in the care of the household staff. Whenever he drove to Vienna in that dark pristine car, whether the top was pulled down to enjoy a summer breeze or not, no one looked this way or that as he wound his way through the wide streets lined with townhouses. Nor did anyone care if he was lost amidst the banking houses as he was only occasionally there, only when the larger accounts demanded it. The children would be rather annoyed to hear that he had had a chance to see their wretched Uncle Max—

The children.

The thought brought him back from yesterday and Vienna, signing papers as Max nattered on about how terribly bored he was sitting behind his desk and sliding papers across his blotter with a fountain pen to men far wealthier than him, occasionally even women. Or the temptation before he started on his way back home to knock on Elsa's door where everything was simpler, easier, somehow neater than anything in Aigen, and certainly more than Salzburg.

Anything, he thought as the customer before him continued to exchange little niceties with the woman behind the counter. Anything would be simpler than you, darling. You're like one of those...I don't remember what they're called, someplace in—I know it's not the Ottoman Empire any longer. They just seem ready to knock you from your feet if they get a little too close, just like you, or at least that what's some of the men on the Caspian Sea said once.

Well, she nearly had. Some days when his mind drifted to Maria, Georg couldn't quite understand how he had come to be in this predicament. How did a girl who had never properly seen any part of the world beyond Austria have such a hold over him? All I had to do was walk away, not even say farewell—just refuse to say anything to start even if you demanded—

"How can I help, sir?"

"Hmm?" Georg had to shake his head to remind himself where he was, just for her. Just for a child, really, but...Well, I know you aren't really one, even if you devour biscuits like one of my children— Goddammit, he couldn't keep thinking of them. Just her.

Her. He really had snapped at her the last time he saw her, Maria's little words scratching at him. He had felt how stiff she was under his touch when she was normal supple and malleable, almost bending to his will, to whatever he asked, really. That afternoon, Georg couldn't imagine her body shifting under his the way he had imagined her so many times and taking whatever he had to give her, almost certainly moaning with pleasure. You would love it and...I didn't mean it, darling, he thought with a rub at the back of his neck, his fingers catching on his skin. You don't know—anything, really, about anything. But you do try my patience sometimes as well.

I don't know why I'm thinking of taking you there, Georg continued to himself as the shopkeeper took a moment to tidy the rugged counter with a click of her tongue as the cloth swiped across the the coarse wood still coated with a few crumbs from with what she had packed up for the woman before him. No one would see—no one would, just as if he did finally pull her into his bed tomorrow afternoon the way he would the moment he could if he had a chance. It was on the edge of the grounds, just that little space off on its own, the one he had found in those first days, the one he and the groundskeeper had agreed to keep fallow this year. It was the only place he could think to take her to just have her to himself, not even God to disrupt whatever finally occurred between them.

But it was only a short walk from the lake behind the villa, five or ten minutes to hear the water lapping against the concrete landing and the rocks that bounded the shore on a windy day. You did always like to take them out that way in the summer. Just the same as...He needed a breath, suddenly desperate to calm the rise in his pulse. Just the way I'll be taking the girl. He hadn't told Maria, he couldn't stand the thought of it, those first few years as Kurt and Brigitta appeared and the hopes for other babies came and went with each month. A blanket he no longer had, eagerly disposed of along with the strongest memories—the basket toted along by Liesl and Friedrich as he and Agathe led the younger by hand—all just to spend a summer afternoon by the glistening water as they sweltered while waiting for a fresh breeze—

"I'm sorry, but what do you need, sir?"

He hardly spoke to the proprietor after that, though more than likely she was simply some woman from his own new part of Salzburg, just nodding when she asked what he would like added to the basket he had bought along the way. He had nothing similar in his flat, and it was nothing more than the cheapest wicker one he could fine in a shop. Well, he really had nothing in the flat at all, not much apart from the gramophone that had never played a single record, his uncomfortable chair, and the splintery table that usually just played home to his brandy and ashtray as he struggled to decide if he still loved or now hated his wife. And his bed, once simply a place of darkness—emptiness through the night when he forgot everything haunting him—and now a place where— God, it always came back to her, even he just wanted a few moments to remember everything...the way it once—

"I'm sorry again, but sir?"

"No, I'm sorry," Georg muttered as he scanned the walls.

After all, it was just an afternoon, a chance to see what a few hours properly alone with Maria would yield. The way she melt into his arms as she always had—

"Sir!"

Georg had no idea what should be dropped into the basket. Really, all he wanted to tell her was that anything nice would do, but she insisted on asking every question he supposed came into her head after he asked for provisions for the following day.

"Will this cheese be acceptable?" ("Yes.") "This sausage?" ("I suppose.") "Bread from the bakery next—" ("Whatever you think is best, I know they won't be open tomorrow.") "This bottle—" ("Again, whatever you think will be best, money is no object.") "Do you need—" ("Yes.") She didn't ask much more beyond that after his words grew sharper, now hardly meeting his gaze as she tucked in this and that. There was the clank of a plate here, the tinkle of glasses there, another clatter he couldn't quite identify. Even when he handed over the bundle of smaller schillings, she was more focused than necessary on counting out his change, and Georg snatched it back faster than he ever had, not that he had spent much time in shops in general. Until he found himself needing to buy his own cigarettes and brandy in Salzburg—at the villa in Aigen, they were simply added to one of the other accounts—he rarely needed cash himself in Austria. Mostly, his experience with handing over banknotes was as a drunk in a bar with some of his fellow naval cadets before they learned better, or even worse to one of the women who haunted those places. Either that, or exchanging Austrian schillings for French or Swiss francs in the short time between Liesl and Friedrich, with Agathe—

"Not here!" he hissed, not even a thank you to the woman. She scrambled away from the counter—her back almost against the wall of goods she had to offer—before he turned around, half stalking through the front door onto the street, already moving the heavy basket from one arm to the other.

The breeze through the wider lane bit as his skin, and Georg took a deep breath, the weight of the picnic basket suddenly aching in the crook of his elbow, right at the joint. Christ, I look a fool, he thought, hurrying toward the next intersection, still unused to such an empty street in Salzburg. It's been so long since I've really spent any time here, even if Aigen is so close. It feels a lifetime away, really.

He turned his head this way, then that. No cars ready to cross the street in the mid-morning, he had decided to come before the worst of the customers who would likely visit throughout the day, so he quickly strode across the street. The pavement here was far smoother than surrounded the flat he had learned to endure, what he did remember from all that time ago. The fancier signs hanging over the doors and windows: finely painted, not a scratch or chip, no rust on the chains. And the doors themselves: no warping, no gaping at the tops or bottoms or sides. Any curtains drawn open from the windows hung clean and pressed, not a snag in sight.

Georg hated it, suddenly. It wasn't safe here, he knew. The memories might not be so strong as that villa just a few miles away, but they seethed here where he and his wife had occasionally walked hand in hand. Or her arm nestled into his where the handle of that damned basket was now, cheek occasionally against his shoulder when she laughed quietly at something he whispered to her. "Not again," he murmured, "not anymore. I can't stand it anymore."

God, he needed a cigarette more than anything—more than he ever remembered. At least the burn in his lungs, he understood. What bubbled there beside it whenever he looked at her, that silly, hardly grown girl...His right hand was already in his pocket, scrabbling for the package of cigarettes and the brass lighter as they grated against each other and the ring of keys and the basket dangled awkwardly from his other elbow, the front half dipping forward. It wasn't balanced, whatever the woman at the shop had slipped into it—he hadn't even looked at the notes he handed to her, or what she had returned to him. But he had to look down, something glass clinking beneath the wicker top.

But it was already caught between his lips, the very end of the cigarette forced there by shivering fingers, the tip already flaring to life in the spring air—and the first hint of the burn at the back of his throat already sating the morning emptiness as he walked farther along the street. The acid was already churning up in a fresh boil from his stomach after a morning of no breakfast and just as glass of brandy. He couldn't remember the last thing he had eaten, none of it mattered now the way it must have just a few months— God, I can't think about you sometimes, he thought with another glance either way across the street. He had to look at something—anything, anything to stop his wife's pale face and mane of dark hair rising up in his mind. Your little words and how you would worry, how I know—

"You have to love them for me."

"Christ, shut your foolish mouth, woman!" he hissed—and another woman with her hat and her own shopping on her arm turned her face to him with a face of disgust and a frown. God, don't bother me, woman— Agathe, he reminded himself again as he wiped a few sudden drops of sweat rom his forehead, now having to shake his head again against the ghost of her face before him.

He must look an idiot, Georg knew. He was a man with the lines already beginning to cross his cheeks and forehead, to say nothing of the old scar beneath his chin that had never quite faded in the decades since a foolish childhood prank played on his brother. (It was a switch and his sister hiding in the trees, and then a punishment assigned by their mother that neither had ever forgotten, though whatever member of the household had administered it hadn't been nearly so vicious as he should have been.) A suit and tie—fine shoes that needed a new shining—pristine white shirt peeking from beneath his jacket's collar...with a white wicker picnic basket dangling from his arm as he smoked a cigarette. He let go of a cloud of smoke through his nostrils, another burn searing the thin skin there. You may love—enjoy such childish things, Maria, but I can't remember the last time I've ever done this, if I ever have. I was a man long before you stopped being a child—and you're still nothing but a girl, even if...He had to shut his eyes for a second against the thought of her in his bed, where he had been wanting her for weeks.

Georg tried not to look at the passersby, unable to stop wondering if one of them recognized him. Georg von Trapp: the dread of the Adriatic, recipient of the Maria Theresa with its golden cross and red and white striped ribbon, baron and local aristocrat, father of seven, widower, and...What would you even say you're doing now? he asked himself. What is she to you? Anything at all? Just a girl you desire—or just a whore who wants you as much as you want her—and you won't have to pay for like all those years ago when you were young and just as foolish? He had to press his hand to his face again. How you talk about the church, I know it's not true, darling. Georg paused as a woman with grey hair peeking beneath her spring hat crossed the path before him, a gentle nod as she did. But I know—you would be mine the second I asked for you. And just as often as...Another breath as he switched the basket to his other arm. God, for just me and a girl who looks like she's never eaten a bite of food in her life, it's so much.

Another cross street, still no sudden rise of cobblestones to catch at his shoes the way he supposed Maria's must even if he wasn't about to drag her to her feet. One more—maybe two—until he returned to the car. If he was honest, it wasn't all that destroyed by the years and errands, sometimes sitting out in the rain and occasional thunderstorm as the convertible was housed comfortably in the garage just out of sight of the villa with the chauffeur's tools, the oil and cleaning rags tucked into a cabinet in the far corner. Well, that was what Georg remembered, he hardly ventured there, always asking the car to be brought around instead, busy with either paying for the household, the children, or…

No. I told you, not here, and I can't have you follow me...here, or there when I'm with her.

Even when he exchanged the fancier of the vehicles on the grounds for the one he saw looming just past the next intersection outside of the garage, it had been brought around for him the evening before he departed. He had exchanged the keys on the steps leading to the front door some day at the beginning of his imprisonment in Aigen when he already knew he couldn't stand for the world to have an idea of who he might be in Salzburg. Almost like it was nice to just fade into the background as Maria did, just an ordinary girl—an ordinary man.

"I think that's a world you know better than I do, Maria, darling," he muttered around his cigarette, the lighter what seemed long ago returned to his pocket and the small mess of keys now retrieved instead. "Perhaps I knew it once, long ago." Despite the weight on his arm—a wrinkle surely pressed into his jacket beneath the basket's handle—Georg yanked the cigarette away, desperate for a fresh breath of air despite the cloud enveloping him with all the windows closed.

Serving your country, he thought, finally on the same side of the intersection. Sometimes, I still suppose they call it that to help it sound better. But you're doing rather the same, in your own way aren't you, darling? Finally at the driver's door, Georg shoved the key into the lock cylinder—or tried to, it didn't quite fit. "God," he whispered, twisting to another on the ring with his thumb. Another moment as he struggled to fit it—then another that at least slipped through the tumblers and turned. The door open, he half threw the silly thing into the passenger seat before he collapsed into his own and slammed the door shut beside him.

God. He drew another breath through the cigarette as he loosened his suit coat around his abdomen. I thought it before, darling, but no matter what I want, I can't think he has any desire for me.

"What are you?" he finally asked himself aloud, another puff of smoke filling the cabin. "What are you, Maria?" One more drag of smoke and one more breath of grey clouding the window. You're a lovely distraction, darling, but I don't know if you can be much else to me, even if I fear I'll do almost anything to be distracted by all of you. He glanced down at the basket, one half of the lid open against the far door, tumblers and little plates packed away with all the food and wine all just barely available to his eyes. Anything at all. Another deep breath through his cigarette left it almost down to the very stub, ready to scorch his fingertips. Slipping it to his left he hand, he found the knob for the window, rolling it down just far enough to flick the still smoldering end away.

Back up again, the window caught the last tendrils of grey smoke before they could escape. One more deep breath coated his lungs anew. But you can't, Maria, you just can't. You'll never be anything like her. But maybe...Georg shoved the key into the ignition, turned it over as the engine groaned with the turning of the gears, You'll be something new.