Chapter 46: Bubbling Up

Monday afternoon, 13 July, Elsa's townhouse, Vienna

"...be easier to schedule a performance when I have someone right there. Though I suppose they're still struggling for any tourists."

"Perhaps," Georg muttered. He wasn't really listening but staring over Max's shoulder instead. He could just see the large wooden clock standing in the hallway, the edge of its face peeking through the doorway into the little freshly decorated breakfast room where afternoon coffee had been laid. Wherever he was in Elsa's townhouse, he always seemed to find the clocks and the time, the seconds of his life ebbing away.

"I'm surprised they haven't tried to encourage anyone else to make up for the Germans over the years."

"And I'm sure you don't really understand."

"I understand enough!" Max said sharply as he leaned back in his chair, unbuttoned brown jacket falling open across either arm. "And it was easier when I left the bank."

"Probably another thing you can blame the Germans for."

"There was plenty to do when I cleared my desk." Georg nodded; he had heard this often enough. "But perhaps I'm not—interested in blame, Georg."

"Really?" As the clock's second hand disappeared from view, Georg picked up his coffee cup with a gentle clink. The china was new, a part of Elsa's frequent quest to redecorate the otherwise empty halls, the gold-rimmed floral set of last year no longer fashionable enough. Whether it was the furniture in the salon or the rugs in the upstairs hallways, she was always looking at samples or heading to an appointment. Even the gleaming oak table and carpet right here were new, though no one but she and her closest family and friends ever stepped over the threshold.

"Whatever the reason"—now Max reached for the sugar bowl, a large spoonful plopping into his cup—"we're where we are now—"

"And it might be time to decide where we're going!" Georg snapped, his trembling hand sending scalding coffee over the cup's edge. Down between his fingers and over his skin, a hot sting lingering as it continued on. "Christ!"

"A little lesson for you?" Max muttered from behind his own cup as his eyes darted across the spread of cakes between them.

Georg scowled as he mopped the black coffee away with his napkin, the last drops caught before they soaked into his sleeve. He shouldn't have taken Max's bait, and mostly he didn't. Really, whenever Max or Elsa began talking about the Germans or the future of Austria, he stopped listening. They've never listened to me, he thought as he folded the stained napkin and tucked it beneath the saucer. And I think I might know a little more about what that future holds than they do, even if some of their other friends might deride me for carrying an Italian passport.

"Georg?"

"Yes, Max?" he answered as he topped up his coffee.

"I know you think you know better than the rest of us—"

"I certainly know more."

"You might have to learn to work with these people. What's going to happen is going to happen, just make sure it doesn't happen to you."

"Don't ever—" A dozen curses died on Georg's tongue. The last years had taught him well enough that there was no trying to convince Max of anything.

"What is it?" Max asked quietly as he picked up one of the dainty pastries the cook always knew to have prepared for him in the afternoon.

"Talk about something else. Anything else."

Max obliged, wandering back to his woes in finding venues for new talent. It was something else Georg had heard again and again over the last couple of years once his friend finally tired of banking. More likely grew bored of banking—and will put off finding a new position until Elsa and I stop helping him out whenever he digs himself in. A sip of fresh coffee burned down Georg's throat. I would say the children would be upset if I finally cut him loose, but I suppose I don't quite know them anymore.

Coffee cup down on its saucer again, he shoved his hand into his jacket's interior breast pocket. The crumpled telegrams from his weeks away were all there, now: each read once and then pushed away into his growing pile of papers. Each time he escaped to Vienna and remembered how much he couldn't quite stand the empty corridors of Elsa's townhouse, he hoped the next days at home would be easier. That the dust would finally settle on the years and somehow—one day—it would be easy and simple to live amongst his children. Well, perhaps not easy. I don't know if I should ever expect anything to be easy where your absence is concerned, love. But there's no ignoring them and the house for the moment, I know that.

News of the Salzburg earthquake had spread through the country quickly, disbelief and fear mixed with relief that the damage had been minimal. Twisted railroad tracks and cracked earthen fences—snapped power lines and buildings needing plaster—but nothing too serious. And Franz's most recent telegram said much the same. All of them in his hand, Georg shuffled through the month's worth of crumpled yellow messages. They were mostly short, a few sentences Franz had scribbled about the villa and estate—"Nothing to be concerned about" was very common for the brief notes that arrived once or twice a week—along with a quick complaint about the new governess around the beginning of the month: "I regret to say that the discipline is not what it should be with the children".

Dropping them onto the table's edge, Georg returned his attention to his coffee. I should have gone back weeks ago—at the first indication the discipline was slipping. I've spent enough time alone in my study except when I need to see to it. I can always do that again.

"Georg?"

"Hmm?"

"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"

"Perhaps you haven't said much to listen to?"

"I know I don't talk about the navy and things that interest you, but sometimes I…" Max's words faded into a haze again as Georg just sipped at his coffee. He nodded here and there as he glanced through those telegrams, a quick little window into the villa's last weeks. There was no escaping it—and it wasn't just to look after the house. If Franz was right, there wasn't too much that needed it. Since the news had first washed over him, Georg hadn't been able to pick the guilt and the anger apart. They kept him away from the city he loved—not afraid of it, but wary—and now they would drag him back. Seven faces he couldn't, wouldn't look at, even if two of them would never understand why.

His fingers twitched and ached, fidgeting as he folded the old cables into a thick packet and thrust them back into his pocket. It had been years since the itch had driven that fruitless search, hoping to find it—the one thing he should have taken with him. God, frightened of a girl less than half your age. More to be embarrassed of than...You would think poorly of me, darling, if you could hear my thoughts now. His freshly trimmed fingernails scratched at his palm, no delicate whistle to stop them from digging in. If I think back—if I'm honest with myself, love—I could have gotten her to do anything with enough persuasion. I nearly did without really trying and...it probably isn't to my credit to think how I could have—

A cough interrupted his thoughts, and Georg glanced up: Max was just looking back at him, the pastry in his hand already half eaten. "Waiting for something?"

"No no no." Max knocked a few crumbs from the corner of his mouth, the plate and dark table in front of him strewn with them. "Just enjoying the moment. I can always count on Elsa to look out after her friends. Never anything but the best."

"Quite…" And then Max was talking again, his newest pastry suddenly forgotten as he wiped the grease from his fingers and then rummaged through the little planner he often had with him, just in case he ever had a thought about bringing one of his provincial choirs to a Viennese audience.

Maybe it's the reason I never can go back even now, why I can't stand the villa and the home we built and loved despite how much I hate it here in Vienna, on your dear friend's arm even when we both know it can never be anything more than that. And how it's really a hollow play for the city to watch. It isn't some deep pain I can't handle—it isn't now, even though it was for ages. "You have to love them for me." It's not quite all you said and I can't quite remember it any better after so long. I've been forgetting it for years. It's the one thing I had to do, the one thing I couldn't do. Georg lifted his cup again for a long sip of coffee as he read over the last telegram from Salzburg.

Some damage to the house but nothing major STOP He would like to speak with you before any decisions STOP The children are well but frightened STOP

Sometimes it feels as though the world is determined to force my hand—quite literally. There's no way to stop it, is—

"Georg!"

His friend's voice didn't even startle him, didn't leave his hand shaking again as he went to put his cup down. "I'm sorry."

"I know I'm not as nice of a companion as Elsa, but I do try to hold up my end of the conversation."

A little growl built at the back of Georg's throat; he wasn't in the mood to think about her right now. "Just a telegram from Salzburg."

"You never mention those even when I know you have them all—"

"Max, not now."

"Just an observation." Max took yet another bite of that pastry, probably his second or third of the afternoon. "Am I allowed to ask what it's about, or is that too much for a friend?"

Georg snorted. "A friend, are you?"

"Stop being foolish, Georg. You know I only sponge off of my dearest friends who are like family to me." Hand curled up, Max rapped his fist against his chest, perhaps the coffee and sugar getting the best of him. "No one else would put up with it."

"At least you're honest."

"I am nothing but honest when it comes to helping myself to the way other people live. You can't claim you didn't know."

Georg tossed the telegram at Max, though it just landed on the little mountain between them. At least that was worth a laugh. "The house," he said as his friend wiped his fingers clean again. "Some damage from the earthquake, though Franz didn't say exactly what. Some repairs to be had, I'm sure."

Max picked up the telegram with a crinkle of paper. "I'm sorry to hear that. You have a lovely house and seven…"

"I know that better than you do."

"I know that, Georg." He folded the telegram gently, then offered it back, Georg snatching it back quickly. "Perhaps…" Max paused. "Perhaps I'll come with you. It's been a long time since I've visited Salzburg."

"At least at my expense."

"And I've never had a chance to explore the region. There must be some singing group there waiting for Max Detweiler to pluck it out of obscurity."

The telegram was back in his packet, smashing down the others. "Because your attempts in Vienna have been so successful."

"I'm not sure you understand success, my friend."

Georg reached for his coffee again, already tepid. "They get the fame, you get the money."

Max sighed deeply, hands folded across his stomach as he leaned back in his chair. "It is unfair, I admit it. But someday that'll be changed. I shall get the fame, too."

Georg just snorted as he poured another round of coffee, a little more for his friend than himself. "They might begin to expect some more from you than the last choir you represented."

Max waved a finger as he shook his head. "Confidentiality, Georg."

"Ah." He took another sip with a little shudder at the fresh bitterness. "But it might be longer than you'd want to stay. Unless you're happy to make your own way back to Vienna."

Max shifted forward, hands folded on the table's edge. "Curious."

"Max—"

"You're never there over the summer. You're not the only one who can see that pattern."

"It's a little different this year."

The world had never been the same after the Great War ended, not that there was ever a chance after the full dissolution of Austria and Hungary. But whatever hope there had been for as good of a world as possible was disappearing. The German-backed coup attempt on the Austrian government and the assassination of Dollfuss two years earlier had been one thing: wretched and shocking in some ways, though perhaps unsurprising in others. But while the Nazis north of border could at least pretend their hands weren't stained red with that blood, there was no denying the troops now marching through the Rhineland. And not a word from the rest of the world while we keep hearing the whispers about German and Austrian unification.

"Perhaps, but it's never persuaded you to leave before."

"What hasn't?"

Georg shivered at Elsa's voice from the hallway, a shadow darkening the wooden floor below the half of the clock he could see. He hadn't noticed the scent of her new cigarette brand, the smell of the coffee was just thick enough. I don't know why I wasn't expecting you back so soon in your own house. Perhaps it's just the latest sign that I should be on my way. Over the last years as Vienna and Elsa's immaculate townhouse had grown into his damned sanctuary, he had learned to make some peace with it: his discomfort when he heard her voice and especially his unhappiness in her arms when he finally gave in to her pleas for him to come to bed with her. But these last weeks had left him counting the days until the villa in Salzburg would be a welcoming prison again. Her lack of concern as he recounted the remilitarization despite the constraints placed on Germany, smiling as though he was talking about storm clouds threatening a wretched garden party...Christ, it left him on edge.

"The summer, Elsa dear," Max called as he twisted around with a grunt and waved her into the breakfast room. "Georg's just looking at another telegram from home."

"I suppose you had to expect another one after what happened yesterday." Elsa pushed Max's hand away as she passed him by, a graceful creature clad in a white satin blouse and long pale blue skirt. "Is there much to worry about, darling?" she asked as she settled a hand on Georg's shoulder.

"Not really, at least from what Franz said," he said quietly as he stiffened under her touch. Not too much longer and then you can leave them to...whatever it is they talk about these days. Certainly not how the world is at the moment. But at least Max hadn't found someone's arm to hang on last week. I would have been in Salzburg to see the earthquake myself if he had.

Uncertainty and no clear path forward had always left him with a tangled path to follow where Elsa was concerned. Beginning with just who he and Elsa were—Agathe's widowed husband and one of her dear school friends—it had always been difficult to tease out how things should move forward, though somehow neither of them had ever tried to claim it shouldn't at all. These last years had done nothing but stoke that confusion. (He smiled tightly as Elsa took a chair at her own table, Max not giving her a chance to pour a cup of coffee as she set her bag down.) But the whispers from Germany that she never seemed to worry over had solidified into something real last Friday evening at the latest party she had insisted on attending. Despite the Strauss waltzes echoing from the corners of the ballroom of a mansion in another fashionable Vienna neighborhood and the champagne already drenching him, there was no mistaking it even from the other end of the room. The host nodding to a guest with his right arm held out, hand turned down and straight in line—and returned before they both smiled as though nothing had passed between them. His demands to Elsa that they leave immediately had fallen on deaf ears, at least until he told her he would walk through the darkening streets to her townhouse rather than stay. Georg still didn't know what excuse she had concocted to justify their disappearance, nor did he really care. But any sort of disagreement he could ever imagine with Max paled in comparison to the quarrel that erupted as they made their way up the stairs of her townhouse to her suite. How he needed to understand how it looked—or how it would look—how she couldn't simply disappear because of a silly salute, how he couldn't simply smile from the corner while Austrian Nazis slithered amongst better men...She might as well have been a stone wall for all the good his warnings did of small appeasements leading to larger ones. If it hadn't been for a heavy summer storm, he likely would have driven through the night to simply be somewhere else. I don't want to know how it will be when you have to ask yourself what to do then. I don't think your worries about Vienna's opinions will matter much longer after that.

And, perhaps more troubling since...that girl was on his mind more than usual. It happened just about now every year, like it was a little horrible anniversary of its own. After seven children then happily brought into the world and an eighth mourned before they could begin to dream of a name, the signs had become so obvious once he opened his eyes. But just as quickly, Georg pushed them aside when the thoughts emerged. After all, it hadn't mattered. The child had slipped away without much notice, or even too much trouble for her, probably the inevitable consequence of a life that hadn't left her ready to carry a baby. Not that I knew much about it, or you, Maria, he thought, wincing as Elsa reached for his hand. Her nails were long and painted as always, beautifully filed and smooth: not sharp enough to scratch, but enough to dig into his skin if she wanted to hold him still.

"Georg?"

"Hmm?" He gently snapped her hand away from his wrist, ready to pay attention to his coffee again.

"You haven't heard a word I've said, have you?"

Max laughed and nodded across the way. "And you aren't the first to say just that! I'm afraid I've been doing most of the talking this afternoon."

Elsa was searching in her bag for something, probably her cigarettes and their holder. Georg had felt her fingers trembling a little; the showroom probably hadn't wanted the smell lingering amongst their samples. But he was happy to let her be quiet and his own thoughts to wander back to Maria, at least for a while.

I knew you were different than Elsa—different from my wife as well!—right from the start, darling. Something about you, like you wouldn't be afraid to fight against me—anything, really. Maybe it's just something in your world, one of the many things I never learned about you. But I never wanted to learn all that much about you, Maria. I needed you in a way I've never needed Elsa, a way I never needed the woman I loved, either. Beside him, Elsa flicked the wheel on her lighter, the end of her cigarette flaring to life. But goddammit, you made it so difficult. You didn't need everything you got from me no matter how you would try to convince yourself you did if I told you so now. And you made it worse that way. I knew it then. For the sake of a night or two—even a week—I would have been more careful than I was. I still can't understand how your church would despise you for that, you were so desperate for a man's attention—

The first cloud of smoke flared from Elsa's nostrils—and all of Georg's thoughts were newly muddled by her. By Elsa, his mistress—by Maria, his wife. The little hints of smoke were tantalizing, his own nerves ready to be quieted by a rush of nicotine into his blood, but he helped himself to more coffee instead. As much as I tell myself I could have convinced you otherwise, you would never have accepted that, Maria. Too pious or too stubborn for the world, I'm still not sure which. But if you're determined to be that pious, you should have joined the church before I had a chance to know I wanted you in my bed, even though your delightful little body would have been wasted in a nun's habit.

He scratched at his neck, glancing to Elsa. She was still beside him, her eyes darting back down to her coffee like she had been watching him. The conversation had died as one of her maids handed Max a telegram of his own, the man now scratching away at his notebook feverishly like an idea had finally come to him through the darkness. For once—

"But if Georg's here, I shouldn't be surprised to see you, Max," Elsa went on as she tapped away the first hints of cigarette ash. "I think you expect I'll be more generous if he's around."

God, it's always the same, Georg thought as his eyes closed, eyelids leaden after a night without much sleep. Whether it's here or at one of those parties you love, I never hear you say all that much, Elsa. I knew that much before Agathe died, but perhaps I just didn't understand how stark it was.

"Of course not," Max said. "You know I always appreciate your townhouse more than my apartment. And being the conversation is all the reason for me me being here."

Elsa laughed quietly, her hand now on Georg's elbow. "More than at Georg's villa?"

"I haven't been invited."

He groaned as he shifted away from Elsa. The woman all of Vienna thinks I should marry and I'm sure wonders why I haven't seen fit do that. God, I detest just the thought of that. "And you're not helping your cause," he muttered as he reached for his coffee again. There's three of us who know the truth, Elsa: you, the girl, and me. All of Austria would know if I ever said a word to you, Max, possibly all of Europe. The coffee was cold, now, but he drank it all the same. And you, Elsa, you keep your mouth closed because of the embarrassment. It can't have surprised anyone how quickly I turned to you, but you wouldn't have anyone know that I still found something I needed in a girl wearing dresses she sewed in her own bedroom. Another sip drained his cup and left a film of grounds along the pale bottom. I know you knew that, love, that she was just somewhat better than all the other girls like her at your school. I should have reminded myself of that before I let myself even entertain all of this. I don't even really know how I let myself get to this place, except maybe I thought there was something in her I could liken to you. That was the problem.

"...look around Salzburg."

"You still think I want you there while I check the damage?" Georg muttered.

Max shook his head. "You just don't know it yet, and we both know Elsa isn't too fond of the charges to her telephone when—"

"Max." His friend's name was as long and exhausted as he felt, another swallow of coffee nowhere near enough to lift his senses. God, I have to be out of here, and soon. But I'll be wanting to leave the villa as soon as I'm there, even if...His eyes darted over to her, face lightly veiled behind a growing cloud of smoke. If it's just to come back here. "You wouldn't have much time to search anyway, Max. I won't be in Salzburg for long." Across the table, Max's eyes narrowed, though he didn't say anything. "Not right now."

"Oh?" Elsa asked.

Max finally shrugged. "A pity, then."

"You can always take a train on your own." Georg licked his lips, a little cracked despite the humidity hanging over the city. "Or maybe once they've seen to all of them."

Another round of ash dropped from Elsa's cigarette. "You have heard, yes?"

"This morning. Nothing much to worry about. I shouldn't be there too long."

"Maybe…" The smoldering end balanced on the ash tray, Elsa propped her chin on her palm, elbow on the table as she smiled at him. "Maybe I should come with you instead."

"Oh?"

"I don't know how interested Georg is in company," Max interrupted as he helped himself to yet another pastry. "He'll somehow put up with me when he won't bother with anyone—"

"But I think it's time, Georg." She dropped her other hand onto Georg's, fingers working their way between his. "It's high time I met all your friends in Salzburg and they met me."

"Maybe someday," he muttered, his hand almost shivering under hers. Her touch was always cold, whether it was in a ballroom or his bed. "But not now, Elsa, I don't know how much there will be to see."

"Isn't that something for me to decide, Georg?"

He didn't answer.

O O O

Late that evening, Aigen

Please, Father, how can I do this? It was one thing to tell myself that I could when I just knew. Before it was something I would have to face sooner rather than later. It was always something I could endure when it was just the real world and something I might not ever have to...I don't even know how to tell You, Father, and You already know. How to come to terms with it? I thought I had—I told myself I had—but it's all unraveled now that the Georg I knew...The Georg I thought I knew isn't just my husband somewhere out in the world, but one man. He trapped the two of us—or set it, somehow, and I walked into it just not thinking—or hoping it would be something else. I wouldn't have, if I knew...anything.

Maria smeared a few tears away onto her shoulder, a long sniff muffled by her sleeve as she kept her eyes tightly shut. Her room that had once been so large and lovely had closed in over the last day reality set in. A few cracks had sprouted in the plaster and left a little white dust on the carpet she had brushed away yesterday evening, much the same as could be seen around the house. Little fissures here, shattered molding there. I know you'll be wanting to see to it. You looked in on so much here without an earthquake to demand it. No one had said anything about when he would arrive: not Franz and Frau Schmidt at the head of the household nor the maids who gossiped endlessly when they thought no one was looking or listening. But it couldn't be much longer. Franz might never have a lot to say to her, except when he decided something about the children's day was out of line, but his worry about the villa and its grounds were clear even from a distance.

Still kneeling beside her bed, Maria squirmed, weight shifting from knee to the other. The rounded front of each burned and her backside ached from her shoes' heels digging into her backside. Dropping her face down onto her bedspread, she stretched her arms out as long as she could, the satin cool and calming against her skin as she just breathed, hoping to find the will to begin again.

The children's clothes still huddled in piles wearing rows of pins, several of the dresses finished but for a few stitches along a seam here or there where her first attempts hadn't been tight enough. Not even Friedrich's were ready, everyone had been such a mess of jumbled nerves. Gretl had refused to leave her side Sunday afternoon and well into the evening, every creak of the walls and foundation sending her into Maria's arms. (Her back hurt from holding the girl by the time an odd midday meal was laid out on the terrace, none of the children wanting to be inside if they didn't have to be.) And until the bedtime stories began, Gretl shivering a little beneath her bedspread, it had been the same question over and over for hours and hours: when was their father coming back?

It has to happen. Well, it always had to, but there was always a chance that it would be after the school year began and I was free to return to the abbey. Though I'm not really free, if I can't choose anything. I don't know if I'd be allowed to do anything I've done these last years if anyone knew I was a married woman. It certainly doesn't feel like I am—it didn't for so much of that time either, if I'm really honest about it. I don't know what I expected, being married. I didn't even know—that first night!

Her nose was running, so Maria lifted her head and tried to clear it with a long sniff. I just don't want to think about it anymore tonight—or ever. I just want to walk away and leave it all behind. But I can't, there isn't any way to do it without seeing him and begging him to set me free. She dragged her hands back across the slick bedspread, all of it slipping through her fingers no matter how she clawed at it. I'm so tired, but I...I can't. I know what I'll see when I do close my eyes. The night before, her sleep had been blank and empty after the day's fright—and tonight, Maria's entire body ached, she had been so tense and anxious at every word, wondering when the children's questions would suddenly become an announcement of his arrival.

Her arms and legs were leaden, her hand slipping from her bed and hanging limply at her side as she slumped against the mattress. The air burned down her throat like it was a frigid winter evening rather than a hot summer night and a headache was beginning to throb under her skull as she tried to hold back the tears she didn't want to cry. It just can't be much longer. No matter what I've told myself...Her other arm slid down the side of her bed—a fast grab for the bedspread and sheets faltered, so she fell onto her side on the pale rug. Her carpetbag peeked from beneath the bed frame, old scratched fabric temping and just within reach. But her fingers and arms were heavy and almost numb, her head stuffy and filled with pins and needles. I'm just too tired to fight him right now.

She never saw him as he ravaged her through the night, just heard his groans melding with her little cries as she scratched at him—struggled to push him away into the darkness before clawing at him to hold him closer. When she finally woke with the lamp on her bedside table still glowing, Maria didn't bother to change into her nightdress, just kicking her shoes away before pulling herself up and crawling under the bedclothes, sheets dragged up over her head. I want to hate you, Georg, no matter what I know God wants from me or what I thought I had managed to do myself. I just can't stop it anymore tonight.

Maria had to start her prayers again the next morning, still not certain whether she wanted forgiveness for her anger or her lingering desire for him.

The next morning, Vienna

It was quiet in the little breakfast room as Georg sipped at his coffee again, already dressed for the day's drive. Max had been persuaded to leave just after dinner the evening before, his prattle across the table a welcome distraction from Georg's own growing temper. And when his friend finally bade them farewell into a growing midsummer storm, he quickly retreated to his suite to pack his things, Elsa's desperate invitation for him to stay with her that night easily ignored.

He eased the lacy white curtains from the center of the window, one of the only elements of the house that Elsa's penchant for redecorating hadn't touched. A clear morning was still emerging from the stormy night, bright and red somewhere on the eastern horizon. "Hmm," he grumbled as another sip of coffee burned his lips. The nights had turned wild for the last week or so, like an unexpected series of squalls had decided to haunt the city: refusing to leave and just hiding whenever the sunshine grew too bright, the way it was now. Even as he squinted to try to distinguish the tops of the trees from the surrounding townhouses, it wouldn't be too much longer until he left. Georg had decided that last night as tossed and turned in his bed; he might even be on his way before Elsa was awake!

He scowled into his cup as he let the curtain fall back, hand traveling to his pocket in search of his cigarette package and lighter—and snatched them away before his fingers could dig deeper. Not awake enough to remember where it is, Georg thought as he turned around to the table, coffee cup clattering as he set it back on its saucer. Or where it isn't, really. At least there was nothing to remember as he pinched the end of one cigarette and yanked it free, biting it between his lips as he spun a flame into life at the top of his bronze lighter. One vice we can share, Elsa.

Max hadn't proven to just be a distraction yesterday, but almost a peacemaker, though Georg was certain their mutual friend didn't really know. Starting just after their argument Friday evening—through dinner last night—the performance they mustered had grown more stilted. It was still pleasant enough on the surface, but it was just that. On the surface. And without Max to smile and nod and talk nonsense almost like a child...well, no one else in the household would have been enough to keep it under wraps.

When will we just accept it, Elsa? he wondered. A shake of his head left a thickening grey cloud around his face, a long exhale adding a little more. It was never quite going to be right, even without—Maria. But with her always being a part of my life whether she wants to be or not, it isn't real. It's a hollow play, and all of Vienna would love to see how it ends. The cigarette was back in his mouth. God, if only it had an ending. Over the last years, it had come and gone, the thought of properly bidding Elsa farewell. After all, there were more than enough things standing in the way—

"There you are, darling!" Georg stiffened, one of his teeth digging into the very end of his cigarette. Even though he hadn't been certain he would be gone before she woke, he had been sure of leaving before she was downstairs. (Not that there was a difference when he wasn't waking in her bed.) Even when they hadn't spent the night before at a bustling party, she wasn't one to start her day early. But here she was already, taking a seat at the table, black dressing gown tied around her waist and fair hair hanging loose and crinkled over her shoulders. "I was worried you might have gone already."

"It's a little early even for me."

"Nonsense," Elsa laughed. "We both know you're always up ages before I am."

Leaning down to the breakfast table, Georg knocked the burnt end away into the ashtray that had been emptied and cleaned late yesterday evening. "Do you?"

"Of course, I've known you long enough." Elsa stifled a yawn behind her hand then reached for the silver coffee pot and a cup, filling it almost to the brim. "Will you be gone for too long?"

"I said yesterday that I wouldn't be."

She pushed the tall pot back across the table with a little squeal, painted nails tapping on her saucer before she pulled it closer. "And I'm not sure if that was for Max or for me."

"I don't understand what you're asking." Another quick sip of coffee calmed Georg's nerves before he returned his attention to the cigarette. I don't know if I should have waited this long.

"It's been like this for a while, Georg. You're ready to be gone the moment you're here."

"I have to be—"

"Don't say anything about your children," Elsa muttered as she dragged her chair across the stiff rug. The one from the previous year had been ripped out at the end of April in the last of rounds of yearly updates to the furnishings; she always tried to do that before Georg arrived for any length of time.

"I wasn't going to. Don't put words in my mouth." Turning back to the window, he waved the thin curtains open again. It was still a red dawn, though not as sharp as it had been when he first glanced through the window. "But I do have to go today."

"Why not tomorrow?"

His mouth twisted into a scowl as he looked back. "Will that make a difference?"

She shrugged as she picked up her cup. "Perhaps—"

"I doubt it."

"You didn't really explain yesterday," Elsa went on loudly, almost coughing on her first sip of coffee. "Why shouldn't I come with you?"

The curtain swished back as he stepped away, a thin draft of air whistling across his face through a crack around the window. "You don't need to, Elsa. There won't be much—"

"Sometimes, I think you don't want me to be there with you."

"Why would you think that?" Georg asked softly, though not moving toward her and the table.

"You've been different since you arrived," she murmured.

"So have you." Even with her coffee cup to hide her face, Georg could still see the circles under her eyes. He hadn't checked the time before he left his suite, the old clock still ticking away the seconds and minutes from its place on the mantle, but she must have made a special effort to be up before he had a chance to depart. Her face was bare apart from a tiny smear of lipstick at the corner of her mouth she must have missed last night and her hair wasn't merely rumpled by sleep, but untouched by a comb. Who you are when no one is looking. It's who I saw last Friday, he thought with a quick stride forward to shake another bit of ash from his cigarette.

"There's no way to stop it, Georg—"

"I don't have to give in to men I despise!"

"You don't have to!"

"I don't?"

"It's just a little compromise—"

"And I won't give them that!"

"I don't care for them either, but we can't just disappear—"

"You mean you can't! I'll do as I damn well please—and should!"

"Please—"

"No, Elsa, I will not."

"There's nothing to worry about yet—"

"There will be soon!"

A long breath cleared his nose and loosened his chest. "In ways I can't ever pretend to accept," he muttered. "We won't have much more to talk about if you insist on ignoring the plans they're laying."

Her eyes snapped up. "Georg—"

"If you want to sympathize with the Germans, I don't have to be here to see it."

"It's not that." She spun around on her chair and stood, stopping only to free her dressing gown as it climbed her legs and twisted around her thighs. "I can't tell what you're thinking these days, and I don't really know why." A few steps brought Elsa to the table's corner where she paused, hand perched right on the edge. "It's not just since...then." She lifted her hand, then dropped it back. "But maybe a little time in Salzburg would be good for—us."

"Perhaps." He smothered the smoldering cigarette end, the last wisps of smoke fading into the air. "The next time I go."

Elsa yanked her hand away, arms now crossed beneath her breasts. "Why do you even come here?"

"Why?" he growled as he shoved his hand back into his pocket. "Why?"

"It certainly doesn't seem to be for me any longer."

His fingers curled around—and the pain shot up through his palm as his nails cut into his skin, his hand clenched so tightly around nothing. "Elsa—"

"I've no desire to be your escape from Salzburg when you can't look at them anymore," she hissed as she stepped toward him, chest heaving as she breathed faster. "Or when you need a distraction from—"

"Don't start telling me what I need!"

"Someone should! Agathe can't—"

"Don't you dare tell me about—"

"She was my friend first—she wasn't always your wife."

In his pocket, Georg's hand loosened. "Yes," he said softly. "I forget that sometimes." I know you say that to remind me of you, Elsa, but then I just think of the children. How we were. Pulling his hand free, he shoved a finger behind his shirt's stiff collar; it was suddenly so close to his throat, his breath caught behind his tie's knot.

Elsa took a short step back, her legging knocking into the table's corner. "I'm sorry, Georg." She pursed her lips; her skin still stung where the coffee had burnt at a crack she had felt under her lipstick yesterday. "But I just don't know what to expect from you sometimes."

"Don't you? I told you all I could give you long ago. But…" Hand in his other pocket, he found the keys he had dropped in last thing before closing his suite's door. "I need to be going."

Elsa nodded slowly as a shorter lock of hair dropped down along her cheek, quickly shoved over her ear. "I'm sure there's plenty in Salzburg to entertain you."

He narrowed his eyes as he reached down for his coffee, ready to drain the cup and be gone. "What the hell does that mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean, no matter how I think you've tried to tell yourself she doesn't matter anymore."

"She?"

"The little—" Elsa bit her lip as she turned her face away.

"Whatever it is, look at me when you say it."

She did look back, one painted fingernail chipping as it scraped at the gleaming varnish below. "The little whore's still there, I assume."

"Don't you ever say—"

"You say she doesn't matter but…" Elsa took another step away from him. "You just came to life when I said that. You've never even told me her name."

"It—" Georg's heart was racing, the blood throbbing in his ears and against his skull as he finally began the search for a new cigarette. "She doesn't matter." God, she can't anymore—and I won't let her, either. The time of year, I suppose. And it's not even her, not really. It's how foolish I was back then. His knuckles cracked against the lighter and bent his package of cigarettes. I lost sight of too much back then, though I don't know if I'm much better about it now. He snorted as he tried to pull one of the cigarettes free, a break right in the middle just growing, like he had crushed them all just now. But that's the first thing I think you've ever told me like that, Elsa. I tried to drive it out of Maria—but I don't know if I would have been able to entirely, no matter how I tried. His hand out of his pocket, Georg shook a few shreds of tobacco away. You knew your place in the world, but you tried to remind me of mine that first—or second time we met.

"...it, Georg."

"What?" he muttered as he straightened his jacket.

"Say it. Her name. If she really doesn't matter."

He shook a few little wrinkles out of his sleeves. "Leave it, Elsa. Like it or not, I have to see to my children. They are real, all seven of them—"

"I didn't say they—"

"Even if you think they're just in your way."

"I don't." Turning around with another swish of black silk, Elsa slipped into her seat again, pulling the chair a little ways through the carpet from him. "Maybe...maybe it's for the best if you go." She folded her hands in front of her. "For a time."

"I think so." You do know how to win gracefully, darling, Georg thought, finally stepping around the table—not even looking down as he walked past her. "You can let me know when you want to see me again."

"You don't mean that."

One foot already in the hallway, he stopped—turned back. "Don't I?"

Elsa wasn't looking at him, instead busying herself with her coffee, as though the last minutes were nothing more than a discussion of an old friend. "You won't be back until you want to be here. With me." A little clatter of her cup, like she had pushed it too far to the side on the saucer. "Will you ever tell me how it all happened. How you met that girl?"

Still peering at her, pale hair now all swept over her left shoulder, Georg took that last step into the hallway, his heel landing on the wooden floorboards with a faint crack. "You mean why her—and not you, don't you?" She nodded, though she still didn't turn around. "I don't know myself." For better or worse, I don't think I ever will. "But I do have to go."

"Let me know before you leave Salzburg again," Elsa said. Her voice was muffled, but Georg heard it shaking. "I might not be here myself."

"As you wish."

I know you're unhappy, he thought as he hurried down the hallway. Past the doors to the parlor and dining room, through the front door that hadn't yet been unlocked for the day. That makes two—probably three of us, to say nothing of the children. But anymore, I don't know how I can make you happy, if—we can't see eye to eye on what I fear is coming. If we could ever make one another happy. The sunshine washed over him, now a vibrant orange as the sun rose even higher. I don't know what I'll do to protect them—but I won't have you there if I think you'll poison them. Vienna can keep you if you're going to play their game. At least that much matters.