Kaiserreich - Prelude to the Second Weltkrieg - Part 1: Germany

4

After lunch the sun came out and Julia and Karl dressed appropriately in order to enjoy the brief bit of warmth in the garden behind their house. Karl read a newspaper – if reading the same headline six times in a row and losing track of it each time could be considered reading – and Julia was intent on a book.

Giving up on the newspaper after his inability to successfully parse the phrase "proposed annexation of Haute-Savoie" seven times, Karl rumpled the paper down and glanced at his sister curled on a chair.

"What are you reading?" He asked.

"What are you reading?" She retorted without looking up from her book. She carefully glided onto the next page.

"The news," he admitted glumly.

"Is it good?"

"Has it been good for a year?"

"I meant, do you like it? Do you think it's well written? Is it true?"

"It's the news," he wondered where she was going with her attitude.

"But which paper is it?"

Karl hadn't even looked to be honest, just picked it up in Munich before he boarded the train. He glanced above the fold. "The Cross," he replied.

"Ah, a conservative paper," Julia tsked him. "Father would be very concerned about where you get your information."

"I read quite a few papers," he defended himself, throwing the thin cut paper onto the bench he was seated on. "Now I told you mine, you tell me yours."

"It's Wahlmer," she said the name like it was supposed to mean something.

"Who's Wahlmer? Is he another poet?" Karl asked. Julia had, for several years, been obsessed with poetry. On her trip to Munich she'd brought little in her suitcase except reams of poetry.

"She," Julia corrected him, "is indeed a poet, yes."

"Ah, and what does her poetry have to say?"

"A great many things you couldn't possibly understand," she tilted up her nose and grinned just slightly.

"Because I don't have the soul of a poet?" Karl grinned back.

"No," she corrected him. "Because you are a man."

"Ah, a feminist poet," Karl nodded. "I should have guessed."

The book flew from her hand and struck Karl in the chest before he could even see it coming. He laughed.

"Read it," she got up from her chair and stalked over to him. "I dare you."

"I will," Karl gladly accepted his sister's challenge. "I don't get enough poetry these days."

"Yes, nothing but trigonometry and calculus for you anymore."

"Engineering is a very noble profession," his vocal wink at her was not missed.

"No it's not," she refused to let him get away with his tease. "Poetry is a noble profession. Art. Music. Something cutthroat where one bad review can end your whole career. There's nobility in that."

"When did you get so opinionated on what's noble? Wait, let me guess... when you started reading feminist poetry?"

"Shut up," she sat down next to him and again leaned her head on his shoulder. She sighed and he could hear another real complaint coming. "Father won't let me go to school in Berlin. He says the city is too much for a single woman."

"There are plenty of schools outside Berlin," Karl tried to reassure her. "You liked Munich when you visited."

"It's lovely, especially in the summer," she admitted, but her voice was not convinced. "But if you want to pursue a noble profession, how could you choose to go anywhere but Berlin?" She raised up off his shoulder, stood, and threw her arms up in the air. "Germany is the centre of the world! Or at least the centre of Europe. And Berlin is the centre of Germany. If you want to find something worth pursuing, especially something noble, why would you go anywhere else? Berlin has all the greatest directors, actors, musicians and writers you could ever wish for, in one place." She paused for a moment before rethinking the point. "Well, not all the greatest I suppose."

Karl instantly picked up what she was hinting at. "Has someone been reading the outlawed syndicalist newspapers by any chance?"

"Of course not!" She scolded him. "The German ones are all outlawed, but the French ones aren't even supposed to be available in the country so they've never officially banned them."

"Julia," he turned on his big brother tone.

"Oh don't worry, I only read the art sections... this avant-garde is quite something though. If things weren't so bad right now I'd ask father to try and get me permission to visit Paris. Just for a week, to see if it's all they crack it up to be."

"I doubt it is," he filled in for his father.

"Maybe not," she admitted and ground her shoe into the ground.

"You've decided on a noble career path though, have you?"

"I could be an actress," she flailed her arms theatrically. "Or maybe a poet myself. Who's to say? I want Berlin to inspire me before I choose."

"If I know my sister, the only thing it will inspire you to become is a suffragette."

She looked at him coyly and grinned her widest grin yet.

"Julia!" His concern raised up.

"Oh don't worry Karl," she broke into a laugh. "I won't do anything here in Weimar. Father's reputation will remain only partly besmirched by me. I'll save all the really scandalous things until Father's finished in Berlin and he's come back and become mayor or something. Then the Review will have something truly ground breaking to report."

Julia, her theatrical energy all used up, plopped back down next to Karl and again put her head on his shoulder.

"You should really be careful with the newspapers," Karl warned her gently, though the feeling in his chest just then was more pride than concern.

"Don't worry," she wrapped her arm through his and patted his shoulder. "I'm a dedicated Forward reader, like my father before me."

For the second time that day Karl felt the familiar overwhelm the strange. Their conversation felt so natural, as if they'd picked up where they left off six months earlier in Munich – debating politics and talking about the future.

"I missed this," he leaned his cheek onto the top of her head.

"I missed you," she replied. "I'm glad you're home."

"Tell me, Julia. Do you think I've grown since I left home?"

"Of course you have, you fool. Can't you see the world around you?"