* * *
After the door closed behind Logau, Marla sighed and looked around. “That’s all for today, guys. Can we meet at our house in two days?”
There were murmurs of assent as the others cased instruments and gathered coats. They left quietly, leaving Marla standing with Franz. He set his violin on the table and came and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her beneath her chin and resting his hands on the opposite shoulders. She leaned back against him, drained, almost exhausted, and pressed her hands against her face for a moment. “Am I crazy to be doing this?” She dropped her hands and turned in his embrace to rest her head on his shoulder. “God, Franz, I…” Her voice broke, and she could feel tears forming in her eyes.
“Shh, shh,” Franz said. His hand rose to cup the back of her head, beneath the rubber band that was holding her pony tail. “If you feel it needs to be done, then it is not a crazy thing.”
“It’s just that…I don’t know…I never cared about politics in my whole life, but what the chancellor wants to do…that world would kill me. I couldn’t live in it. And it would kill my babies. I’ve already lost Alison. I can’t…I can’t…” Marla gulped.
“Shh,” Franz said again. His embrace strengthened, until she felt for a moment as if she were held in oak. “It is enough that you feel this must be done. We will do it; for you, and for Alison’s memory.”
Chapter 23
Ciclope walked up to the gate at the construction site. “You looking to hire anybody?” he asked the burly man standing there with a clipboard in hand and a shallow helmet on his head.
“Might be. You have any special skills?” The burly man spoke in a gravelly voice without looking up.
“I am strong, I can use a shovel or a pick, and I have laid a course or two of stone in my day.”
“We will be laying brick. It is not the same.”
Ciclope shrugged. “I can learn.”
The man looked him over, seeming to pay more attention to his hands than anything. He looked back to his clipboard as he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Go see Heinrich, the mason boss. He should be over by the brick supply in the northeast corner. Tell him I said to give you a try.”
“And you are?”
The man looked up again. “I’m Leonhart Kolman, head crew boss for Schiffer Construction. Remember that name.”
“Got it.” Ciclope nodded.
Kolman focused on the clipboard and jerked his thumb again. “Get moving.”
Ciclope got. Once he was through the gate and past the crew boss, he slowed his pace and looked around. Pietro had hired on two days earlier as a general laborer, and had spent last night describing the layout of the construction site to him. Right: brick pile to the northeast, sand for mortar to the southeast, lumber pile to the northwest, and the excavation site to the southwest. Lots of men hurrying across the site in different directions. And that derrick pointing up to the sky swinging a cable with a load of barrels hanging from it must be the steam crane.
The arsenal masters in Venice must be rubbing their hands at the thought of getting one of those, he thought to himself. Whether the arsenal workers would accept it was another question.
Ahead he could see a group of men gathered together by the great mound of bricks on pallets. One was talking and gesticulating, the others were gathered around him. That was probably the mason boss.
Ciclope squared his shoulders and headed for him. He needed to convince the man to keep him on, or he and his partner would have a much harder time figuring out where to do their sabotage.
Maybe those months he spent apprenticed to that sot of a mason in Dresden all those years ago would come in handy after all.
* * *
Every day after he swept at Frau Zenzi’s, Simon would give a scrap of food to Schatzi. Most nights he would then go back to the rooms and spend the time nibbling on whatever food was on the table that night while Hans and Ursula talked, or while Ursula would read the Bible aloud to them.
But on some nights, perhaps every fortnight or so, Hans would meet him when he was done and they would go to the bear pit. The quality of Hans’ opponents did improve somewhat, but no one that Simon had seen gave the hard man a real challenge.
Tonight was one of those nights. Hans was waiting on him when he stepped out the door. “Come on.” He pounded a fist into the opposite palm. “It’s fight night.”
“Okay.” Simon kept on the lookout for Schatzi as they walked down the street, but there was no sign of her in the dimming evening light. He hoped the little dog was okay.
The walk out to the bear pit went quickly. Neither of them spoke much. Hans was in a good mood. His battered hat was shoved back on his head, letting his hair escape its confines. Simon looked over at his friend, walking along with his shoulders back and his hands tucked in his belt, whistling. Hans seemed immortal, indestructible.