Chapter 28: As Summer Goes On
Maria was finally happy, truly happy, for the first time she could remember, really. Well, at least since her father died, and not just because of how her life instantly changed. And when Georg was at home, she found herself even happier than she was for those few short years. He came and went as he pleased, seemingly vanishing for two or three days each fortnight. It never came as a surprise when he said he would see her later that week, just a disappointment. Despite the small bed they shared, it always felt so empty to Maria those nights he was away, almost enormous. Even alone, she always huddled on her little portion of the old mattress, almost wary of encroaching on his space though her hand only ever found cool sheets.
Each morning when she woke—at least those mornings Georg was at home—Maria always turned onto her side toward her husband if he hadn't already risen. She couldn't quite understand...anything. Sometimes, her life felt like a dream now. I still can't believe it, she thought once as Georg was slower to awaken than usual, just enjoying a rare moment to watch him sleep. His gentle snores, how his hair was unkempt in a way he never tolerated during the day, the little hint of his chest visible beneath the shirt he sometimes wore to bed...She usually sighed and fell back onto her own pillow, always able to find just enough space beside him. How is this my life? I'm just a girl from Vienna. I've never been anywhere—seen anything. And you've seen the world.
The day after their wedding, after Maria finally showered—scrubbing away at everything from the previous night and that morning dried on the skin between her legs before Georg took his turn to wash—it had been a short drive in the worn car to her boarding house to empty her little room of her possessions and speak with the house manager. If they hadn't been coming for all she had in the world, it would have been an easy walk even in her stiff flats.
Her books, her guitar, her small selection of clothes and boots, her father's watch...It had only taken two trips between the two of them to gather it all, though she always took a little less than he did. She was still clad in her wedding dress (how strange it still was to think of that word and herself together!) and too worried over something she hadn't quite noticed tearing at the delicate fabric. Maria supposed she could have simply asked for Georg to wait in her room while she darted into the tiny washroom to strip off her fine dress and exchange it for one of her own handmade frocks, but she doubted he would have let her away. The way his eyes had struggled to devour her the moment she was stripped bare, she didn't think he would later that evening, either. Despite spending the evening and night and morning naked in his arms, Maria was still uncertain how to feel without her dress, even for just a moment. The linen slip beneath her dress wouldn't be quite enough to keep the embarrassment at bay, so she simply filled her arms cautiously as she could.
With each armful tucked into the back seat of his car, Georg occasionally sighed and shook his head at all she had collected over the years. (Not that it was much, Maria told him, at least when she remembered her foster mother's front room.) Well, she had supposed he might, his flat was so spare. And with the last of her things now packed away for the brief drive, she was just happy that Lukas was nowhere to be found, though he hadn't troubled her for...Well, she didn't even know if he still had a room in the house. They were the only things but for the furnishings she left behind, the pair of roses he had sewn for her. Maybe it will be another girl who lets the room, maybe she'll appreciate them more than I did.
Just bringing in her meager possessions left the flat a little more crowded, but...livelier, Maria decided. She couldn't quite understand what had been missing that first evening and morning. Not very much of Georg to be seen was all she could decide, though it wasn't something she could fault if she was honest. There was very little of her past in her own books and trinkets apart from what little she had from her parents, hidden away to keep it secret and safe before her uncle could lay his own claim to it. There was nothing of him—her aunt—even her foster mother! Maybe Georg feels the same, she thought as she settled her guitar beside the gramophone, confused by the thin layer of dust just at the back of the turntable. I know I thought perhaps he just put everything away to keep it safe. I suppose he doesn't need to look at it himself, but I don't even know where those things might be. Maria never glanced through the cupboards, though. I'm sure he just doesn't want to think on it, if he doesn't want to look at those things.
Even with the school year finished, Maria still spent her days teaching, though now it was tutoring some of the children she had already taught. As each day began, it was the same worn chorus rising in a garbled wave across her classroom: "Good morning, Fräulein Maria." With all the sessions already scheduled—almost like another term, really—Maria hadn't bothered to talk with the headmaster to revise her surname. I'll do that ahead of the fall term, she decided. Everything was still too new, too unfamiliar—too wonderful!—to worry about something so silly. And my students already know me anyway.
None of them seemed all that interested with the fresh crop of lessons set to last until the end of August, just a week or so before the next school year began. As she scrawled her first morning's introduction across the same chalkboard—many of her students sitting in their same chairs at the same desks—she wondered if their parents just didn't quite know what to do with them. "I suppose Uncle Josef would have liked that for me," she muttered one day. One of the boys continued to taunt that little girl—Sonja—just as he had the entire year. She was paler than ever, thinner too. She never smiled and always hurried to the front to ask questions that she answered on her own. "I don't know what it is," Maria told herself several times as the bus rattled home over the rough streets. "But I don't suppose it's my place to ask. And I don't think anyone would listen to me anyway. No one would have listened to me." And always, just after…"No one would have listened to me, either."
Maria rather preferred the evenings and weekends with her husband; the mornings were too short for more than a short conversation and a quick kiss as she hurried to the bus. (At least with Georg to rouse her unless he was out of town, she hadn't been late since the summer classes began.) She struggled with many things around the house apart from cleaning, well trained for that in her uncle's house. Most nights, she always tried to remember the dishes she had occasionally watched her aunt cook: noodles, cutlets, dumplings...Mostly, they were overcooked and stodgy, though she could usually correct them enough that Georg didn't complain. She even struggled with coffee weekend mornings when there was enough time, the percolator still confusing her. When she poured her husband and herself a cup—some days, she did without milk—it was either filled with grounds or far too pale. "You'll learn," he muttered, though she knew he was being generous. He hadn't even complained the morning one of the cups slipped through her fingers, suddenly in a hundred ceramic shards on the kitchen floor. She had the entire mess swept away before he knew, she had grown used to it in her uncle's house, though she knew he might only be frustrated rather than raise his hand at her.
But she always had to go back to her classroom the next day or the next Monday, wishing she could spend that time with Georg instead, that she hadn't already agreed to summer tutoring before everything changed. Sometimes when she was testing her students in German and maths—sometimes sending Sonja back to her seat before she could ask her question—Maria wondered what he did through the day and those days he had to go. He only muttered about business, things he had come to look after once the navy disbanded with the dissolution of the empire. She always forced her mind back to her classroom when her thoughts drifted, though. One afternoon, Maria even tried to catch Sonja after she darted through the door and disappeared down the hallway, her imagination had run her so far afield. Collecting the final papers of the day, she found a little toy tucked into the corner of the little girl's chair: a worn doll with button eyes, knotted black thread hair, and wearing a dress that she must have sewn for it herself. She was already gone, even when Maria hurried to the end of the hall and into sunlight. In the end, she tucked it into her bag with those papers, telling herself she would give it back to her the next day. The next, the next, the next...After a week, Maria set the doll on the shelf above her portion of the wardrobe. That first evening, Georg scowled at the little toy and she heard him murmur how hideous it appeared, though he never touched it after she caught his arm, saying she would take it with her once she saw Sonja at school again. The girl never returned to class.
Perhaps more than she was willing to admit, Maria particularly adored the evenings with her husband. Whenever he returned from his trips, Georg nearly always had something small for her: a little book of poems, a new set of hair pins...But he never quite smiled when she put on one of the records she insisted he buy for the gramophone, though sometimes he wore a pinched grin. (She just tried to pay attention to the music when he did.) And even more, the nights with him. She blushed in confession more than once as she whispered how she enjoyed her husband making love to her. Georg reached for her almost every night he could—sometimes even in the mornings at the weekend! It still felt so wrong at times, her unadulterated happiness as she moaned with the pleasure of him buried in her. And then when she cleaned away the signs of that passion, she couldn't help but wonder…
What would it be like? Especially as she showered, watching the water trickle down her body and cling to her inner thighs where she always had to be most diligent...What will it be like, a child of my own—our own? Not the ones I have to leave in my classroom, but one here, in my own arms? I know it's what God asks of us, the reason I should want him like that more than any other. And, after that weekend, I wonder how long it will be.
That was what perhaps saw her blush the most, one weekend just after June had come to a close. She still wasn't certain what to make of it. Her Friday afternoon and evening seemed the same as ever: her stack of papers sat on the table waiting to be marked and her dinner still simmering on the stove was a little more improved from a few days before. But Georg hadn't had any interest in food that night when he finally arrived at home from wherever his business had demanded his attention. He was hardly through the door and the stove barely turned off before he had her stripped bare in their bed. That weekend, apart from a few moments to eat or visit the washroom, she hadn't left their bed, either. He made love to her again and again, so many times she didn't think she could stand it any longer...until he rolled her onto her back once more, already pressing into her and burying his face in her neck. By the time the next Monday arrived, she had to wear her hair down around one shoulder to hide the little mark he had left again and her back almost ached, to say nothing of her legs and hips. He had hardly said a word over the course of the weekend, not even her name.
Not that all their lovemaking seemed to have meant anything so far as a child went. Maria had never been so embarrassed the morning perhaps two weeks after their wedding, waking to the blood that marked her monthly cycle coating the inside of her thighs. (Well, except perhaps that morning.) She hurried to the washroom to dig through the little sack of rags she collected over the last years to wipe it all away—begin to catch whatever else appeared—but there was no hiding the new marks on the sheet. Fortunately, Georg didn't say anything other than the sheets needed to be properly laundered anyway. (He had quickly lost patience with her preference for washing things in the bathtub.) At least her next cycle at the end of July had been lighter—shorter—easier to catch before it stained the sheets again.
As August went on, Maria began to find sleeping difficult. Falling asleep was no trouble, but she often woke through the night with her stomach troubling her no matter what she ate, though bidding farewell to her beloved sweets had helped. Not enough that she worried over properly being sick, just that she had to swallow a little more when she lay in bed—a little harder. But after sitting up or even just pushing herself onto her elbows for a few seconds, it faded enough that she could sleep again.
As her twentieth birthday approached at the end of August, Maria scowled when another period arrived, though fortunately as light as the last one. But despite her irritation (did any woman ever enjoy this time?), she reminded herself to be grateful. Her life was unimaginable, now. Even so...she couldn't help but wonder. Where do you go when you're out of Salzburg, Georg? What do you do when I'm teaching? You haven't even quite told me what you did in the navy apart from serving on a submarine in the Great War. I know you'll only answer if you want to, but is it so hard? I know you lived a life before we met, but you don't talk about it. I suppose I shouldn't think that, I don't like to think about some of my own, let alone talk about it. But I can't stop wondering.
Maria loved her life now—so long as she ignored the little questions.
Georg, on the other hand, almost hated his life now. Each morning after Maria left, Georg sat with his cigarettes as he twisted his wedding ring, often stripping it off and dropping it in his pocket. The only challenge was remembering to have it back on his finger before he heard the door open if he was home, sometimes only worrying about the damn thing when he heard her shoes on the floor of the front room. The girl was usually too happy to see him to notice much else.
Just a few days after signing those blasted papers, Georg woke with a weight on his chest. 16 June...Marta's fourth birthday. Even the year before, Frau Bauer had told them what the little girl wanted for her birthday—demanded as a nearly three year-old did. Pink hair ribbons for herself and her favorite doll; they were eagerly received, though Agathe's practiced hands wove them into their daughter's hair better than she tied them into her doll's. He hadn't been there to hear what she wanted this year, what any of them wanted. It was still too hard—too much—to even look at them— "You have to love them for me." She still haunted him—they all did—despite the young girl who now shared his bed every night.
In the mornings and evenings, Georg tolerated his new wife. Her coffee was hardly potable, but at least nothing else on the breakfast table required her touch. It was always bread and some sickly sweet jam she found at the local shop, perhaps a cheese or hard sausage that could sit on the counter. At night, her noodles were often like glue, whether she cooked some that were sold at the shop or she worked to make them herself from a mound of flour and the eggs always sitting on the counter. Her veal was nearly rubber as she tried not to burn herself on the pan or with the fat, probably never touching a stove before in her life. But didn't all women come with their foibles? He tolerated how she hummed to herself whenever she marked her papers, sang some nonsense as she attempted to prepare something for them to eat, read that silly book of tales she cherished if she dawdled in the front room before he insisted she join him in bed. Maybe her voice explained why she had always wasted her money on cheap tickets at the music hall: wide ranging, but raw and untrained. Maybe you would have been better as an opera singer, he thought one night as she sat with her book and one of those new blasted records screeched on the gramophone. Then perhaps we never would have met.
But it was for the best, he always decided, no matter how he wanted to take her silliness to task. After all, she remained his distraction. Her seemingly endless chatter, the humming, the singing...it drowned out the gnawing in his chest. And especially at night, Maria distracted him quite nicely. She never complained—never resisted—when he reached for her, demanded her. She always opened her legs for him, her tiny body and petite breasts almost a torment from the beginning. He didn't even hear her moans anymore, hear her sigh his name. It was a dull noise in his ears—a thick fog across his eyes whenever he opened them—at least until the satisfaction of filling her with his semen overwhelmed him, always bringing him to earth again. My mark in you, he often thought when she vanished to the washroom to clean herself. You'll never be rid of all of it.
While she was in her classroom tutoring students whose parents sent them away for the day, Georg wasn't always certain what to do. Some days, with more in the flat than ever before, he leafed through a book or two, never quite reading the words. Often, the front room was thick was smoke for hours, and he opened the windows in both the front room and bedroom to clear it before she arrived home with her bag of school papers to mark. That first day he had to himself, she had coughed for several minutes when she stepped into the stagnant haze. Other days, he wandered the roads for a few hours rather as he used to—just the night they met for the first time. He always ate his midday meal at one of the local cafes, the noise drowning him then just as her words and tunes would when evening came. And sometimes, he had to attend to business.
He drove to Aigen more often than he liked, at least once a fortnight now that summer had properly overtaken the grounds. Though Frau Schmidt and Franz were happy to direct the staff, there were always a number of questions to ask and answer. How was the garden faring after the summer thunderstorms? Had the crack on the far side of the façade been filled and plastered? Were the accounts still up to date? Had any new staff been hired? Occasionally, with the children still in Vienna with their grandmother, Georg strode around the lake in the afternoon, hating every step. No matter where, the memories were everywhere: a little joke here, one of the children stumbling there...He was always more forceful the next evening he reached for his new wife, though he supposed she didn't know quite enough to understand it wasn't ever love or even passion in his bed.
Sometimes as he prepared to return to the flat, he looked after the bank account in Salzburg, fortunately in a nicer part of the city where he never ventured in the course of his new life. Rarer still if he left Aigen early enough, he drove to Vienna for the day. He always avoided the nicer corners of the city, Elsa's neighborhood in particular though he still had an occasional telegram from her at the villa mixed in with the other letters and messages. He always turned it to ash with a cigarette in the Salzburg flat after reading it. Vienna also occasionally demanded a visit with Max to sign papers and nod in accordance with his friend's laments before he then went to the investment house for the regular update on Agathe's trust account. Always the same places as the visit before. Yet one day, he couldn't quite stand it, his curiosity and his wife's lingering plea driving him there.
It was unwise, that Friday. Perhaps he was simply in a better mood than usual even after the drive up from Aigen. He had found a little card in one of the shops he knew Maria would like, cream colored paper with a smattering of watercolor red roses in full bloom. (Occasionally when he was out, Georg couldn't resist those little things that always made her smile, though he was never quite certain why. Perhaps it was her even greater willingness in bed at night that he craved.) But it was a misplaced curiosity—a sudden urge to know—that sent him to his mother-in-law's home, just outside the city, quickly yanking on the thick bronze chain to ring the bell in the hall. He almost turned back before the ornate door creaked open. The butler recognized him immediately, asked him to wait, that he would fetch the Countess and the children immediately. But at the first thundering of those steps somewhere upstairs—the nursery where the children always protested bedtime during visits past, it must be—almost the rumbling of an earthquake from above rather than below, he couldn't stay any longer.
The card in his pocket was long forgotten by the time Maria arrived home. By then, he only needed one thing from her: her body to distract him. More than ever, he didn't hear her—didn't see her—he only felt her. He refused to let her go the entire weekend, taking her time and time again until his mid-aged body occasionally grew tired or demanded a meal. As soon as his stomach was satisfied or he caught his breath, he had her on her back again for a few more hours, demanding her tiny body accept what he gave her time after time—for days until she finally had to leave for her tutoring.
It was too often, Georg knew, how often he made love to her, though he hated thinking that. The first time she woke up to that month's blood, Maria was embarrassed but he only felt relief, just as he did the second and third times. (He mostly ignored her little chatter about how much easier these were than before.) More frustrating were the nights that she seemed unable to sleep now, moving about and coughing until she finally managed to calm and try to sleep again.
In the end, he should have expected it, known it was all too good to last the way it was, this little world of his own and his secret.