Anna opened the compartment on the piano bench and retrieved her staff paper. “We’re going to record this movement while it’s still fresh in your head.”
“We can do it later,” Max said. “It’s getting late, and you’ll want to spend time with Bruno.”
“Bruno,” Anna said, turning to him. “Could you give me an hour to work on this with Max?”
Bruno rubbed his jowls, then nodded.
“Come with me,” Norbie said, placing a hand on Bruno’s shoulder. “I’ll show you a few antique clocks that I’m working to restore, and a confounded grandfather clock that refuses to strike on time.”
Alone with Anna, Max played the new movement toLight Suite, bar by bar, which she recorded onto staff paper. And as their hour drew to a close, so did the realization that his time with Anna would soon come to an end.God, I’m going to miss you.He slipped his hands from the keyboard and placed them on his lap.
“We have a couple more minutes,” Anna said.
I wish it was a hundred years.He took a deep breath, his lungs feeling heavy from the chronic exposure to cold air. “May I share a few thoughts with you?”
“Of course.”
“I’m glad that you shared your commitment to train guide dogs with Bruno. But when the war is over, and when you’re married and living in Frankfurt, it might seem difficult, perhaps even impossible, to pursue your dream. You have a gift, Anna. You’re restoring the lives of blind veterans through guide dogs. And it would be a shame if Bruno’s plans for your life hindered the pursuit of your true purpose.”
“It won’t,” Anna said. “But I’ve made a commitment to Bruno, which will eventually require me to move away. And the chance of being a trainer will depend upon a school being established in Frankfurt.” She picked at the edge of the piano with a fingernail. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” Max said. “I simply wanted you to know that I believe in you. If there is anyone who can create a path to train guide dogs, even if it’s outside of Oldenburg, it is you.”
“Danke,” she said.
He stood. Nia rose from her place on the floor and joined him.
“Stay,” she said. “We have a little more time.”
“It’s best that you spend it with Bruno,” he said. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
“Good night,” she said, her voice soft.
Max clasped Nia’s harness and they descended the stairs to the workshop, where he informed Norbie and Bruno that he and Anna were finished working on the composition. He took Nia out to the garden to do her business, and then he settled onto his cot. Music emanated from the gramophone in the living room, sending a wave of restlessness through him.Anna and Bruno are together. He slid over and patted the cot.
Nia hopped up and curled next to him.
“We’re partners from now on, girl,” he said, running a hand over her fur. “When we aren’t working, I’m going to spoil you rotten.”
Nia leaned back and licked his face.
Max, his mind racing with thoughts of Anna, struggled to sleep. He hoped that Bruno would always be kind and supportive of her, and that nothing would prevent Anna from pursuing her ambitions. Also, he rehashed the evening conversation in his head, in particular a few of Bruno’s comments that ignited a wariness within him.Pioneer Regiment 36 sounds familiar, maybe it’s a special unit. Why would an officer be transferred from infantry to artillery? Does the military have a great need for ink? Perhaps it’s to dye the uniforms.He fought to bury his newfound unease. But long after the gramophone music ceased, he remained awake, listening to the ticktock of clocks. And he prayed, for Anna’s sake, that his reservations about Bruno were groundless.
CHAPTER28
OLDENBURG, GERMANY—JANUARY30, 1917
Bruno, kneeling in the garden, labored to harvest winter leeks while he waited for Anna to come home from work. He hacked away at the frozen earth with a hand trowel, sending throbs of pain through his joints and bones. His intentions were to add sustenance to Anna and hervater’s meager diet, which mainly consisted of turnips. And he hoped that by toiling away at the solid ground he would distract himself from the cancerous guilt that consumed his soul. Instead, his isolated act of penitence only exacerbated his torment.
This morning, on his way home from observing Anna train at the school grounds, he witnessed three children, no older than twelve years of age, break into a barn and flee with a handful of looted rutabagas. Rather than attempt to stop them, he’d watched the children—emaciated, with protruding cheekbones and sunken eyes—devour the vegetables as they scurried away through a snow-covered field. Despite the atrocities that he’d experienced at the front, he was shaken by the horrid condition of the children. Although he’d heard the rumors of malnutrition, he had been detached from the daily sight of starvation in Germany. The food shortages were not entirely caused by the Allied blockade, Bruno believed. The empire was also to blame. After all, the army had seized most of the horses, and they conscripted the bulk of the agricultural workforce. Additionally, farming fertilizers were scarce due to diverting nitrogen to produce explosives.I should have paid more heed to Anna’s letters about the dwindling supply of rations. I could have brought more food with me from Lille.But in his shaken state of leaving Celeste, he hadn’t thought to load his leather case with more food.
His travel home from the front had not been delayed as he’d led Anna to believe. The first two days of his military leave were spent with Celeste. Upon learning that she was pregnant, he refused to leave her, despite her encouragement for him to go home. “It’s not your problem,” she’d said, curled next to him in bed. But it was his predicament, he believed, and it wastheirbaby that was growing inside her. Like friends, rather that lovers, they talked through the options for the pregnancy and themselves. At the end of two days, much of which was spent in the confines of his room, they decided that Celeste would have the baby, and that Bruno would provide for her and their child. And Bruno insisted that Celeste move to Germany—in the event that the German Empire was defeated—so that he could care for her and their child in a town near Frankfurt, rather than her be ostracized for having what the French referred to as a “Boche baby.” However, Celeste was reluctant to commit to leaving France, despite the risks to her, and the shame that might be cast upon an illegitimate child.
Bruno loathed his father’s affairs, and now Bruno had a mistress, too.I’m repeating the sins of myvater, he’d thought while consoling Celeste. Before the war, he’d intended to lead a different life from hisvater, which Bruno hoped would include a lifelong commitment to one woman. Falling for Anna had reaffirmed his conviction. However, the years of killing had ravaged him, and in a fragile state he’d sought comfort from his pain in Celeste’s warmth. Months from now they would have a war baby. And for the rest of his life, he would need to live with the consequences of his lapse in faithfulness.
Far more had been compromised, Bruno believed, than his fidelity to Anna. Since he’d foolishly accepted Fritz Haber’s recruitment to a special chemical warfare unit, he’d committed unspeakable acts. Thousands were gruesomely killed or maimed by poison gas. Someday, Bruno believed, he would go to hell, if there was such a place. And in the interim, he would live in a purgatory of secrets and lies. To protect himself and the woman he loved, the past and present would need to be compartmentalized—his life with Anna, his care for Celeste and their baby, the atrocities that he’d committed at the front, and his family’s role in the German Empire’s chemical warfare program. And if Anna were to find out about any of the other facets of his life, he’d likely lose her forever.
As Bruno loosened a frozen leek from the ground, the back door squeaked open.
