What Love Sees by Susan Vreeland

everything. To Jean, it all seemed so absolute, so logical. She was an authority on all matters.
    The last chords from the organ lingered. Jean still didn’t move. A startling quiet sucked up the echo and it seemed as if she’d forgotten how silence felt. She wanted to absorb the hushed stillness and the sense of space. Too soon the mood was broken by people talking and moving around. The girls and Miss Weaver passed through the heavy doors into the brightness of the cathedral square. Jean’s eyes watered. She waited while the others adjusted to daylight.
    “Four months ago Hitler’s troops marched here to show his presence in the Rhineland,” Miss Weaver said.
    “What’s so important about that?” Lucy asked.
    “My dear, he violated the Treaty of Versailles, arming the country in outright defiance of an arms limitations agreement. That’s what’s important about that.”
    “I’m hungry,” Jean said. “That’s what’s important about me. Can’t we eat soon?”
    Down river at Koblenz they stayed at the Hotel Fürstenhof. LCW had always stayed there. It had a broad balcony overlooking the wide boulevard. This Sunday morning it was a popular place because breakfast was served outside in the sun. All the tables were crowded, and Jean bumped into several chairs before she got situated. Miss Weaver insisted that at every meal a different girl would order for the group. This time was Jean’s turn. The girls told her what they wanted and she stumbled through with her Agnes Jennings pronunciation of German. “Adequate but not brilliant,” Miss Weaver remarked. They were served. That was all Jean cared about.
    A clock tower struck ten, unleashing chimes from churches all over the city. The resounding clangor was so deafening the girls couldn’t hear Miss Weaver’s lecture about the surrounding architecture. Chimes rolled layer upon layer, like an ocean wave rolling on top of another wave. Eventually, the wild disorder of noise took on a low, heavy, staccato movement, dull and thudding, coming from one direction. The throbbing became more distinct, reducing the chiming bells to tinny decoration in comparison with the reverberating base rhythm.
    “What is it?” Jean raised her voice.
    “Soldiers,” Lucy shouted in her ear.
    They came closer, a million lead weights pounding the boulevard below. Jean felt the balcony vibrate in response to the measured thud, thud, thud. She held onto the edge of the table in front of her. It vibrated, too. Quick, hard, sharp, the beats thundered in her head. She barely took a breath until, gradually, the pulsing retreated.
    “They walk so funny,” Lucy said after they passed. “They keep their legs straight in front of them and march like wooden soldiers or stick figures.”
    “The goose step,” said Miss Weaver.
    “What did they look like?”
    “They were just boys, but they looked so stern,” Icy said. “They all wore brown shirts and black boots.”
    “And red arm bands with some kind of emblem,” Lucy added.
    “It’s a swastika,” said Miss Weaver, “and when it’s on a flag it’s called die Blutfahne , blood flag. It’s the Nazi party symbol.”
    “The whole thing gives me the creeps,” Jean said.
    The girls described the emblem when they saw it again, a black twisted cross in a white circle on a field of red. In Heidelberg, two-story banners hung along the streets. Each time Jean heard them flapping in the breeze every thirty paces, her stomach felt unsettled. “How many are there, anyway?”
    “I stopped counting,” Lucy said.
    “What are you doing—counting the men in uniform instead?” Jean chided.
    Heidelberg was honoring the 500th anniversary of its university. The ancient town went wild. There were music festivals, sword dances, boisterous speeches in squares. Rowdy singing poured out of beer halls into the streets. It all gave Jean an uneasy feeling of dread that the world had become so loud and strident. In order to get something to eat,