games, sharing music, and generally being with Max to pass those hours.
Just then she heard noise at the front door, followed quickly by the ringer. This time Genny went to see who it was before Clara even made it out of the kitchen.
She opened the door to a stocky sentry. “I am here to collect Major von Bürkel.”
“Collect?” She noticed the folded field gray duffel bag beneath his arm.
“Collect.”
From behind her, Genny heard Clara’s approach. “Will you tell the Major there is someone here for him?”
The sentry moved inside, sidestepping Genny. “I will follow.”
Genny watched the two go up the stairs, wishing she had the right to go too.
She didn’t bother returning to her book, knowing any attempt at reading was futile, at least until she knew the details of why Max was being “collected.” She’d thought—hoped—the German army had refused his request to return home, since he spent so many of his days at the Kommandantur or sanitariums with recuperating patients.
Barely five minutes later she heard movement from the top of the stairs. Hurriedly she took her seat, picking up the book but not seeing a word.
She saw Max first. He looked toward the butler’s hall, then toward the parlor, where his eyes rested on hers. He was dressed in a dark greatcoat, gloved, holding his shiny steel helmet under his arm. She stood and he approached after giving orders to the sentry to take his bag and wait outside. Clara closed the door behind the sentry, then looked at the Major as if ready to open it again for him. But when she looked in the direction Max stared, she left altogether.
Genny met Max in the center of the parlor. The lamp she’d used to read by only dimly lit a corner of the room. The shuttered windows of the parlor let in no light at all.
“I’m taking your advice and returning home at last.” He offered a half smile.
She nodded, unable to speak. Unable, too, to stop looking at him, though she wished she could turn away in case he saw her wildly erratic breathing.
“I would have told you my travel was approved,” he went on, “but word came to me only this morning. I hope . . .”
She waited for him to finish.
He started again. “Perhaps this seems abrupt since we’ve barely spoken these last days. I don’t mean it to be.”
She nodded again, silently calling herself a fool for being so speechless.
At last he took a step closer and with his free hand reached for one of hers. “Will you let me stand here blathering like a fool, Genny? Won’t you even say good-bye?”
She tore her gaze from his to look at his hand, so strong, so much larger than hers as it tenderly held her own. “Good-bye,” she whispered, so quietly she could barely hear her own voice. She dared not speak any louder and give away the tremble she knew he would detect.
She felt him take a breath as if to speak again, but no words came. He let go of her hand and turned to walk toward the hall.
“Max,” she said, unsure she should say anything but unable to hold back.
He stopped immediately, facing her again. But he didn’t step any closer.
She bit back the words she wanted to say—how she would miss him and wished he weren’t going, how she would think of him while wishing he were still here. But she refused to feed this monster between them. Instead, she offered a quick prayer even as words began leaving her mouth.
“Love her, Max. Your Käethe. I’ve heard it said that sometimes the feeling follows the action. You have the discipline for the action; I know that.”
He smiled, but she thought it was a rather sad smile. “Yes, discipline I have. That’s true.” He paused, started to turn away again, then looked at her with a larger smile, one that held the admiration she’d seen on his face so many times before. “Good-bye then, Genny.”
“Good-bye, Max.”
And then she watched him leave.
30
Once again the Germans have proven how shallow, how utterly worthless, their promises are. More men are being seized and sent to Germany—in cattle cars of all things. Even men holding cards allotted them by the CRB are being deported, and such men were once “promised” to be exempt from the seizures.
La Libre Belgique
* * *
Edward worked on the latest issue of La Libre Belgique, waiting for Isa to return to the room and finish typesetting the final page. They’d barely