Ring of Fire III(45)

The colonel didn’t want much of the first, since he usually ate in taverns, and he wanted almost none of the other. His clothing was as filthy and bad-smelling as he was, and there wasn’t much point in her washing them because within a day he’d have them covered again with spilled liquor and food; within three days, vomit; and within a week, the condition of his breeches and underclothes didn’t bear thinking about.

Every day seemed to pass in gray colors. She was losing her hopes for simple contentment as surely as she’d lost her hopes for marriage, for children, for joy, for pleasure. She’d begun to think about suicide, from time to time. So far the residue of her Catholic upbringing kept her shying away from the idea. But she thought that eventually her faith would die also. She felt like a walking corpse, stumbling toward a grave that she simply hadn’t seen yet.

But she would see it some day, she knew. Probably before she saw her thirtieth birthday.

She knew her birthday, at least. Many people didn’t. February 11th, less than a month from now.

She wouldn’t be able to celebrate it, though. Von Troiberz disliked birthdays also, even his own. She wasn’t sure why. She thought it was probably because the colonel had lost whatever capacity he’d ever had to enjoy a day just because it was a day to enjoy. And so he found it irritating to have others expecting him to celebrate. So might a man who has lost all sense of taste react when people urge him to eat a cake.

If she wasn’t too tired, maybe she’d be able to have her own private little celebration. Just by herself. There still wouldn’t be any flowers she could pick yet, though. Even the crocus wouldn’t come up until March.

She’d often wished her birthday had been in April or May. Maybe then her life would have turned out differently. She liked to think so, anyway. There was still some small, not-quite-dead-and-buried part of Ursula Gerisch’s soul that thought most of her life’s trajectory had been the result of misfortune and happenstance. Not all, no; she accepted that she bore some of the guilt. But on her best days she thought—well, mostly she just wondered—about someday being able to find a new course for herself.

* * *

A peculiar sound coming from somewhere outside finally penetrated her bleak thoughts. Ursula realized that she’d been hearing it for some time but hadn’t paid attention. It had gotten quite loud, by now.

She found a clean portion of the bedding and wiped the tears from her face. Then she rose from the bed and went to the window.

The sight beyond, in the glow of sunset—even in January, it seemed warm—was the most wonderful she could remember seeing in years. The one thing in the past three days that had brought some happiness to her was seeing those incredible flying machines in the sky.

They were so big! Yet not frightening. Not to her, at least. Many of the soldiers were scared by them, but she wasn’t. Where they saw monsters in the air, she saw gigantic puppies.

She liked puppies. She liked dogs, too. They smelled nice to her, even if some people didn’t think so.

She’d have kept a dog except the colonel didn’t like dogs either.

And now there were three of them! All at once, in a line, one behind the other. She’d only seen one at a time, up until now.

They were coming in her direction, too—right at her, it seemed. And because they were approaching from the west, the setting sun lit up their huge, swollen bellies. She could easily see the boats that hung below them, with their noisy machines that apparently made them fly. She could even see people clearly, looking over the side of the boats.

They were quite low, she suddenly realized, much lower than she’d ever seen one of them come down before. They couldn’t be more than six or seven hundred feet high, maybe even less.

Suddenly, for the first time in years, Ursula was filled with excitement. She had to see them better! From outside, not through a small grimy window. It was a cheap window, too, which made everything look distorted.

She glanced at the colonel. Von Troiberz was sprawled on the bed, snoring heavily. He’d come to bed drunk, as he usually did. Nothing would wake him up except the clap of doom.

Splendid. If he were awake, he’d undoubtedly forbid her to go outside. Moving quickly, Ursula put on her clothes and shoes, wrapped a cloak around her, and left the room.

* * *

In less than a minute she was outside. But the tavern door opened into a small courtyard surrounded by buildings. She couldn’t see any of the ships from here. So, she hurried through the gate and out onto the village’s main street.

But the street was narrow and the buildings alongside it just as tall. Frustrated, she looked around and saw a meadow in the distance, perhaps twenty yards beyond the last building. She could get there in a couple of minutes, if she hurried. The soil would probably be icy, but she had good shoes. It was the one piece of apparel she owned that the colonel had been willing to spend some money on.