Springtime of the Spirit Read Online Free PDF

When he had plans of refitting the factory, offering jobs to returning soldiers like Christophe?
    “She’ll listen to you,” Frau Düray went on. “She’s always held you in high regard. As Giselle did.”
    “Munich is a big city. How would I find her if she doesn’t want to be found?” He tried pulling his hand away, but Frau Düray held fast.
    “We can guess where she might have started out, and it was only two months ago. Surely if you went there, to one of the inns where we stayed when visiting Munich—the only inns she would have been familiar with—you would learn something about where she went off to. I’m sure of it!”
    Christophe was anything but. “Perhaps if you were to go to Munich yourselves . . .”
    She pulled her hand away as if he’d scalded her, her blue eyes wide. “Oh, no, no, Christophe! It’s frightening enough here, among neighbors. But there? We wouldn’t go. We couldn’t.”
    Although he’d seen the unrest himself, knew it was as bad as the newspapers made it sound, should he assure them no one would know them in a city as big as Munich, despite the recently overtaken government? Surely their identities as capitalists—and worse, warmongering capitalists—wouldn’t be obvious by their name or manner. Although . . . with the quality of their clothing, he knew they wouldn’t blend in with the masses filling city streets, the only safe group of citizenry these days. And those not very safe at that.
    In truth, soldiers were the only ones no one seemed to hate anymore. The Socialists wanted the soldiers’ confidence and cooperation, and the government wanted their arms. The Communists might hate them for having fought at all, but they wanted the soldiers’ armaments too. He knew if Herr and Frau Düray wanted someone to go into Munich—a city torn by all those grabbing for power—it would have to be someone like him.
    He would certainly be safer than either of them. And what else did he have to do, anyway?
    Perhaps it was the right thing to do; Annaliese might be exactly where she wanted to be, in no danger at all. But what harm would there be in finding out for certain? God seemed to be whispering that into Christophe’s soul even before he uttered his response. He’d given Christophe no other direction in a very long time. And God’s urging, unlike the Dürays’, was impossible to ignore.
    “I don’t want your compensation, Frau Düray. But I’ll go.”

4
    Annaliese fingered the brooch in her palm. It was small enough to conceal in almost any pocket of a jacket or a skirt. She’d done it often enough, mindlessly toying with it while tending to something else, proofreading pamphlets dictated by Jurgen or writing content for some of her own. Answering letters she’d begun receiving almost daily, ever since she’d spontaneously joined one of Jurgen’s speeches almost two months ago. A speech he’d welcomed her to share, once he saw her message reflected his.
    She touched the brooch sometimes when sharing the platform with him. Only Annaliese knew she concealed a jewel virtually no one in or connected to the crowd listening to her could afford. Its very existence was the antithesis of everything she espoused these days. It was the symbol of what she’d turned her back on, everything she’d left behind. Her parents’ money, her parents’ greed. They’d given her a brooch similar to this one, which she’d had no trouble selling, promptly donating the money to the cause for world unity. For a better future for all, one of fairness and equality.
    The brooch she held now hadn’t been hers. It was Giselle’s.
    She rarely took it out except in the privacy of her own room. Here, she could look at it and remember how Giselle had worn it pinned in the center of her collared blouses the way their mother always had, how the black onyx had winked in the light but had never matched the sparkle of her eyes.
    “Annaliese.”
    The sound startled her, so unexpected was