When Jörg’s corpus returned to his apartment complex, he found a familiar man standing out front. Fritz Ziegel. A shoulder bag lay draped across his coat.
Fritz turned to him and waved. “Sorry for showing up so suddenly.”
Jörg’s corpus let out a cry of joy. “How did you find this place?!”
“Someone told me where to go.”
“Who?”
“Nil.”
“You still talk with him?”
“He just shows up on his own.” Fritz opened his bag to show what was inside. “I only have two. Take one.”
A pungent, sour-tinged scent wafted up. Jörg’s corpus drank back his saliva. “Apples. Real apples.”
“They have them if you go to the right places.”
“They must have cost an arm and a leg.”
“You can say that again. I learned that the apples also come from the Far East. Have you ever heard of a country called Japan?”
“The German Army fought with them at Tsingtao, right? They’re a small country, but they sent ships all the way into the Mediterranean when the British asked.”
“That’s right. They’ve gone into full-scale production since the start of the war and are sending a lot of things over. It’s been an economic boon to their whole country.”
“Like America.”
“Maybe. But if you’re going to get anything, food would be better than booze now, right?”
“Thank you. I could cry.”
Jörg’s corpus walked up the aged stairs ahead of Fritz. Upon returning to his room and unlocking the door, he motioned his friend in first and then shut the door behind them.
Fritz set his bag down on the table and gently removed the apples. “I couldn’t get much else, just a carrot and some parsley stems.”
“It’s plenty. Over here it’s hard to get anything except turnips. People have turned parks and apartment courtyards into farms, but they don’t produce very much.”
“The city has different soil than the country. That’s not surprising.”
The apples were sour but tasted as sweet as honey to the two men. As Jörg’s corpus savored his apple intensely, he asked Fritz, “What did Nil say about me?”
“He said you’re walking a very human path…whatever that means.”
“Did he tell you what I’m doing?”
“He did. That’s why I’m here. The government is not going to show the socialists any leniency. I figured that if you were in danger, then I’d come get you and we could escape together.”
“They can oppress us as much as they want—it’s pointless. The harder life becomes, the more workers join the movement. Because socialism considers how to deliver wealth to the poor.”
“And how do you plan to make that happen?”
“The capitalism that created our modern society makes it seem like anyone can acquire wealth if they work hard. They tell you to work and get money, and so long as you don’t stray from that path, you’ll be rich someday. But that never happens. The rich want to reduce labor costs to increase profits, so they try to keep worker wages low. As industry develops under this model, the wealth disparity between workers and the rich grows. The overall wealth in society increases, though, so at some point all that wealth accumulates at one end. In other words, the economic cycle becomes divided between society’s upper class, where the capitalists are, and its lower class, where the workers are. Wealth doesn’t move from the upper to the lower classes but just circulates among the upper class. On the other side, the money in the lower class circulates among the lower class and no one can move up. The people work hard in the hopes of breaking into the upper class, but even a lifetime of work in the lower classes can’t earn enough money. That’s the system that emerges. All that wealth and the divided economy needs to be stirred from top to bottom again to redistribute wealth. That is the ideal socialist society.”
“It’s a wonderful story, but can it actually work in the real world?”
“There’s only one way to know. But the movement is still in its infancy. The Russian Revolution just happened, and no one knows how its economy will react. I’m not giving up hope, though.”
The corpus’s eyes shone brightly. “We’re staging a big protest in Berlin tomorrow. The chief executive at Kiel resigned on the fourth, and the workers and soldiers’ council seized control of the city. That fire has started to spread across Germany, and it won’t be stopped.”
“Do you think I could join?”
“You want to come?”
“I want to check out the protests for myself and draw what I see when I get home. It’s actually one of the reasons why I came here.”
This stunned Jörg’s corpus so much that his hand holding the apple stopped moving. “You’re going to draw something besides monsters?”
“Ever since I went home, my mind has been filled with everything I experienced in war. The monsters are gone. All I can picture are our dead friends and the faces of the soldiers I killed. So I’ve started drawing people recently.”
“Really?!”
“It comes and goes. I’m sure I’ll stop wanting to draw people someday and will go back to monsters.” Fritz laughed at himself and devoured the apple, core and all.
“Who’s going to lead the protest?”
“The Spartacus Group. Tomorrow’s protests were Liebknecht’s idea. They’re looking to mobilize people at factories and barracks, too. And citizens from all over Berlin will be there. Isn’t that incredible?! The Obleute1 are advocating for groups of elite soldiers to lead an armed revolt. Their creed is ‘All or nothing,’ and they insist that nothing can be achieved without meticulous planning. But that’s not necessarily true.”
Fritz muttered, “That’s a little too extreme.”
“I think Liebknecht is more grounded and realistic than the Stewards. If the people themselves don’t act, then the revolution will never succeed.”
“Emotionally, yes.”
“Let’s get to bed early tonight so that we’re ready for tomorrow. Sorry to cut this short after you came all the way out here.”
“Don’t worry. We can catch up after the protest.”
“Thank you, I appreciate it.”
That evening, after Jörg’s corpus and Fritz went to bed early, Milos said to Jörg:
“Wait for me in your corpus’s dreams. I’m going to bring Lila.”
With that, Milos left for Xandra’s inn.
Jörg entered his corpus’s mind and searched for a corridor. He would just borrow a dream as a place to meet Lila’s simulacrum. He planned on talking with her there without his corpus realizing it.
At the end of the corridor sat the kind of plaza commonly found throughout Germany. The square was surrounded by buildings housing things like a long-established restaurant, a bar with a flashy sign, a café, a distillery, a general store, a lawyer’s office, and a clinic, while a tram pulled up to the station in the center. As Jörg stood waiting, a horse-drawn carriage drew near, and Lila stepped down from the passenger compartment.
He hadn’t seen her in years, and though she still looked like a child on the outside, something about her seemed more grown up. He wasn’t sure what to say to her but eventually muttered, “Hey, long time no see,” which sounded like an extremely stupid thing to say.
Frowning in disappointment, Lila said, “You’ve been away for two years, and that’s all you can think of?”
“Sorry.”
They stood silently apart for a while longer before bursting into fits of laughter, steadfastly shaking hands, and finally embracing like family.
Lila said through tears, “So Xandra’s medicine finally worked. You’re almost free.”
“It’s all thanks to you.” Jörg sniffled. “You saved the food supplies to Berlin. Thank you.”
“I was only able to do it because you laid the foundation, Mr. Huber. We just put your plan into action. Our only issue was volume.”
“You don’t have anywhere close to enough, though, do you?”
“Either way, it’s better than nothing. No one can get rations anymore, and Diana said this is our last hope.”
Jörg sighed in relief. “I’m glad it’s helping, even if just a little. I didn’t have hopes for anything bigger.”
“We’re growing food now, too. We realized that buying food wasn’t enough and that we also needed to produce it. Right now we’re considering how we should rebuild things after the war. Once it ends, a whole lot of soldiers are going to go back to their towns, right? Men with injured bodies and minds won’t be able to start working right away. So we need to keep focusing on women doing the work.”
“I’m sorry you have so much additional work. And it was my plan.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore who came up with it. Everyone just wants to be able to eat like they used to.”
“How is Milos involved?”
“He helps a little with analyzing military information. The Count is there, too, so everything’s completely safe. Milos said he has lots of free time now that Serbia is free.”
“He told me a bit about that.”
“Mr. Huber, you should be more concerned about tomorrow’s protest than about us. Berliners’ frustration is at a breaking point, and if they clash with the police or military guard, it’s going to become a riot.”
Lila removed a bottle of medicine from her bag. “I hope this will be the final push that lets you escape your corpus.”
Jörg took the bottle, removed the cap, and drank the entire thing. The pit of his stomach burned as if he had just downed some hard liquor, but he didn’t feel himself separate any further from his corpus.
His spirits sank, but Lila comforted him.
“Nil used complicated magic, so you won’t get out easily. We have to be patient.”
“What am I going to do if I can never get out?”
“Then you should just go back to being a regular person.”
“Wouldn’t you have a problem if I went back to being a regular German again?”
“My insistence on that has disappeared. Like a lingering snow that has melted.” Lila continued brightly. “Watch out for your corpus. He might be your body, but you can’t control him, so he could do anything.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s hard to imagine that Nil won’t try anything tomorrow. Milos and I are going to turn invisible and keep an eye on you. If anything happens, we’ll be there to help you this time.”