The End of Innocence (15 page)

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Late September

Wils walked into Copeland's Boylston Hall classroom a week after the attack. His face was pale and drawn, and when he turned to sit in his wooden chair, he turned slowly, as if the pain had not left him. He gruffly nodded to Helen as he walked in amid the murmurs of his classmates.

Classroom numbers had dwindled again, such that Copeland gave everyone ample time to discuss the (de)merits of modern verse. But when it came time for Wils to speak, he waved the professor off. In a rare act of charity, Copeland assented and moved on.

At the end of class young men crowded around Wils to speak to him. Helen looked at the group of intent faces, peppering Wils with questions, then picked up her things to leave quietly. As she walked to the door, she heard chairs shuffle behind her and Wils called out her name.

“Miss Brooks! Wait,” he said in a hoarse voice, untangling himself from the crowd and walking to her. He seemed thin, his dark jacket hanging loose across his shoulders. Yet his eyes gleamed, and without a hint of distance.

“I wanted to thank you for visiting.”

She looked away from him. “The ensuing argument with your cousin was hardly a reason for thanks.”

Wils nodded and they lapsed into silence.

“Are you all right?” he asked at length. “Because, you see, I don't think you did anything wrong in refusing him. I'd hate that you stay away because of Riley. It gives him entirely too much say in our lives, and God knows he has enough to say already.”

She smiled.

“Wils, do you want to come watch the practice?” called Dane, walking with Marvin Elken.

Wils shook his head. “A few other things going on, Dane.”

“Does it involve a pretty skirt?” called Marvin, laughing and walking out the door.

“Why, yes, I believe it does,” Wils called back as Helen turned a bright pink.

“Miss Brooks,” he said as Marvin left the classroom, “I hear you've taken to walking down by the river. I was hoping to join you this afternoon.” His tired eyes smiled at her.

She looked at him in surprise and smiled. “You feel up to a walk?”

“My doctor said some fresh air would be good,” he said as they walked out the classroom door.

They left the construction of Harvard Yard, passed the congestion of shops and private dormitories in Harvard Square, and made their way to the banks of the Charles, walking north along the river. They spoke of events of the day—of Wils leaving the crew team, the fury of Copeland's edicts about Archer's rally, the battle raging at the Marne in France—while they strolled down a path and onto one of the river's bridges. At its crest, he stopped and rested against the wall.

“Would you like to know how Riley's doing?” he said, looking at the people walking along the far shore.

“How is he?” she asked warily.

Wils shook his head. “He's spent most of the past week in despair.”

She looked away. “I'm very sorry to be the cause of it.”

“You needn't worry, the Dudevant twins are helping him recover.”

“Twins?”

“We each handle grief in our own way and Riley likes the dual support,” he said, turning to her with a half smile. “But take some comfort. At least in this case it's not disloyalty on his part, which for Riley is, well, rare. I know that because he's often on the couch moaning about how you were the angel who was going to convert him from a wastrel into a good man.”

“That's God's job,” she said with a look of exasperation.

“Yes, but who will help God? He'll need it.”

They both laughed. She looked at him, and shook her head. “Regardless, I made a mistake.”

“As did I.” He shook his blond hair from his eyes as he looked at her intently.

“What mistake did you make?”

“I listened to him tell me about how wonderful you are. And between that and our growing acquaintance, I can't stop thinking about you,” he said softly. “I don't mean to startle you by saying this, but time is now short for me here. I have tried, and tried, and tried to forget you, but I've failed. And in truth, Helen, I don't want to just think of you. I don't want to walk with you just today, but tomorrow, and the next, and the day after that. I know I have no right to ask this, but I had to find out if I might at least hope before I left, that, if I return, you might hear me out.”

Her lips parted in surprise as he continued.

“I'm so sorry. Honor should prevent me from asking you, but I had to know,” he said, his eyes fixed on hers as he spoke.

“Yes,” she said, a smile springing to her lips. “A thousand times yes.”

He closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank you.” In a moment he opened them and, seeing her still there, gave a joy-filled laugh. “Come, Helen,” he said with a charming new boldness, offering his arm. “Come with me. Let's walk a bit farther before we have to go back. It gets dark so early these days.”

She put her hand on his arm, and as he covered it with his own, she looked away, unable to contain her smile.

Each afternoon they walked together, at times arm in arm and at times at a distance. Some days they spoke of Wils's home in Prussia and his duty to his country. Other days, of her ideas for a poem or Copeland's latest reading. And others about nothing in particular. It was those times that their laughter was most easy and their hearts at peace. But the days grew short. As Wils's strength increased, the call of home grew more difficult to honorably resist.

* * *

The next week Wils told Helen that Robert Goodman had called with the terms of truce by which the city would drop its investigation into Wils's shipyard visit. He was to leave within a fortnight, on a privately chartered boat, he said, as he watched her face darken.

As they walked around the Charles, he promised that he would return to her as soon as he possibly could.

She met his glance and, after a pause, asked, “Is there something I can do to help—like throw you in the river so you'll be too sick to leave?”

As she said the words, he looked down at her, his eyes filled with sadness and admiration, but he said nothing.

“Wils, how is it that you're so unlike other Prussians? You don't long for war or Belgium—”

“I did steal my cousin's girl,” he offered.

She laughed. “There is that, I suppose, but you're different from the Germans I read about in the papers today. Professor Francke is different as well. But it seems there are so few of you who feel different, I fear for your country.”

He shook his head. “I do too. The Prussians believe the laws are different for them—that they're stronger, and can use that power to make Germany rank above all other countries.”

“To what end?” she asked. “That's what I want to know. What could possibly be worth all of this carnage?”

He shook his head as he looked out to the water. “Things,” he said dully. “Others' things. Power. Pride.”

“And you? What made you different?”

He gave a deprecatory laugh. “My father was a poet—a man who could pluck beauty from the air. He saw the unseen and wrote that there was more to life than what we could measure. I believe he was a great man. At least I thought he was.” He looked away from her down the bank to a group of young men launching a small boat into the water. One threw a rock at a pair of bickering squirrels. The animals turned and fled up a tall elm.

Wils extended his arm to her, and the pair began to walk again. “Was he not a great man?” she asked, after a pause.

“I can't tell,” he said, his voice suddenly wavering. “You see, he died when I was young. And soon after, I began to forget him. It's terrible. I can't see him anymore in my mind—he has no form, no smell, no voice. He's a portrait on a wall, not my father. Helen, it's a terrible thing to forget the dead. Is it disloyal to forget one's own father? What does that say about me as his only son?” He turned to her suddenly and held her arm tightly.

“I won't forget you, Wils,” she promised rashly.

“You can't mean that. It's so easy to let those go who aren't with us at any given moment. I didn't mean to forget my father.”

“Don't tell me what I can and can't promise. I promise that no matter what happens, I will not forget you and I will be faithful. Doesn't your mother remember your father?”

“No man could stand in his shadow,” he said bitterly. “There is no one for her to remarry. But men like my father have vanished, except for a few.” His voice trailed off as he, suddenly conscious of the grip on her arm, removed his hand. “They've been replaced by the Prussian war machine. It's all power and things. There has to be something higher than that to live for.”

“Do you think there is?”

He nearly laughed. “Helen, of course I do. I'm my father's son. But I've stopped reading philosophy for now. All I think of these days is you.”

“Come now,” she said, a smile flickering in her eyes.

“It's true,” he said, turning back to her. “Helen, do you know what happens when I think of you?”

“What?” she asked.

“Music. I hear music.”

“The sound of a cuckoo clock?” she teased.

“A psalm,” he said, in a tone that silenced her mirth. “I'm serious. It's something about waiting patiently and finding—no, that's not exactly right. It's vague. It's something about time and joy meeting.”

“Is it everlasting?” she asked as he reached for both of her hands.

“It feels like it must be. But I don't know,” he said with a shrug. “Do you think of music?”

“I think of color,” she offered.

A glint of mischief appeared in his eyes. “Reliable Boston brown?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “I see a beautiful yellow, blue, and white.”

He wrinkled his nose. “A French kitchen? What about red?”

“The color of sin? Not at all. My colors are crisp and vibrant: your hair, your eyes, your skin.”

“Oh,” he said as his eyes widened in hope. He said nothing further, but knelt before her and covered her hand in kisses there at the river's edge.

Later that evening Ann looked at Helen from across the room at Longworth Hall. Her friend sat before a mirror combing her hair. She looked radiant in her white lace gown—the young woman she'd not seen in many months. Ann told her that she too would take up walking. It seemed to have done Helen's spirits a world of good. She'd never seen her friend so happy.

Helen smiled as she brushed out her long, dark hair, but she kept her secret.

* * *

The tenth of October was breezy and cool; the sky was gray, threatening storms. Helen suggested they not walk that day. Wils, noting that she was well dressed for such an outing with her wool shawl and long skirts, suggested a different path. Helen pulled her shawl tight around her shoulders and followed reluctantly.

He led her down to the banks of the river to a small wooden boat. “What is this?” she asked as the wind breezed up again.

“A boat ride.”

“On a day like this? Are you mad? You'll exhaust yourself rowing.”

“Won't you help row?” He smiled.

“You expect me to row?”

“Such little faith in my manners,” he clucked and held her hand while she stepped into the craft and sat at one end.

“I have faith in the wind,” she replied.

“Helen, I did pick up a thing or two from rowing all those years with your brother,” he said, pushing them away from the bank with the edge of an oar. “A little faith, please.” With strong strokes he pulled to the middle of the river. His face reddened as he struggled. Helen thought him mad. The Charles River was slow, but the wind was not, and Wils had only recently recovered.

In the middle of the river, the wind coursing above them, Wils suddenly pulled his oars in. “You're right, rowing is hard work,” he said. “Your shawl, please,” he said.

“You're not going to dry that oar with my shawl, are you?” she warned as she handed it to him.

“Does wool spot like silk?”

“Don't change the subject.”

“Which is what?”

“You're trying to drown us—”

“To stop your chatter?” Wils asked.

“To silence words and ideas you don't like to hear.”

“Helen,” he said with a broad smile, “you sound just like me! And as you know, rough words for an idea don't mean rough thoughts for a person. Now move to the middle.”

“Whatever for?”

“To balance the boat. You're the ballast we move around to get the right weight-bearing load in the—”

“You're calling me ballast?” she spluttered as the winds howled.

“Other way. Sit with your back to the wind,” he said, as she menaced him with a stern look before she turned around. He ignored her and pulled a piece of twine from his pocket, knotting the top of the oar to her shawl, to her horror. He shifted behind her, putting his arms around her.

“My shawl!”

“Hold this,” he said, giving her the oar, and pulling the shawl around her. “Lean back now,” he said, pulling her toward him.

“Mr. Brandl!”

Wils pulled her back as the makeshift sail became taut. She finally leaned back into his arms and the sail carried them swiftly through the water. They laughed all the way down the river, gliding quickly now.

“If I never row another stroke I'll be perfectly happy,” he said, leaning up and suddenly kissing her cheek. “You'll make an excellent ship's mate.”

“I'm better at mutiny,” she said, dipping her hand into the cold water and splashing him for good measure.

After a good distance they came to a barren spot, where the buildings and cars were far away from the river's edge. There he stepped out and splashed over to the bank, pulling the boat to dry land. He offered his hand and helped her out.