Frederick's American Café

Chapter 8

Morning dawned. Frederick was awake earlier than his usual hour. The cot available to him was sagging and uncomfortable. His neck, back and arm ached from resting on it as long as he did. His clothes were rumpled beyond wear. And if he didn’t get a shave this morning, he might as well not bother.


He half-expected Hemmert to remove him from his cell and march him to the station where the warrant would be delivered. He got his hopes up briefly when the German entered the office whistling cheerfully, but Hemmert ignored him completely, despite Frederick’s attempts to gain attention, and shut himself up in his private office momentarily before appearing flushed and angry, muttering under his breath in German and exiting once more to the square.


Frederick was by now officially tired of this incarceration. He hoped there was a warrant so that he could get out of the cell and open the safe, and rub in Hemmert’s nose that there was nothing in it to support his claims. Anne had been vague the other night as to when she would remove their things, but surely she took them with her when she cleared out. Surely there was nothing in it now to get her or the rest of her family in trouble.


As he sat ruminating, there was a knock on the outer door and then Harville let himself in.


“Boss!” he exclaimed in relief to find Frederick exactly where he had left him. He carried a breakfast tray over to the cell and held out a ring of keys. “I’ve come to spring you!”


“Hemmert sent you?” asked Frederick in disbelief. Hemmert did not seem like the kind of man to lend out such keys to anyone.


“N-no,” Harville stuttered, a bad sign. “I got the keys from Mrs. Wilkes. Her whole party just showed up again at the hotel like nothing happened and she said she wanted to speak with you. I told her that Mr. Hemmert had you locked up on account of your not opening the safe without a warrant even though her brother is supposed to be a spy. And she said that’s impossible; she would know if her own brother was a spy or not. Then she gave me Mr. Hemmert’s keys and said to let you out, and she went into your office and shut the door.” Harville paused with key almost in the lock of the cell door. “Why do you suppose Mr. Hemmert gave her the keys?”


The thought of Anne so close to Hemmert, so close to danger, nearly drove him wild. “Get me out of here!” he bellowed at Harville, straining at his handcuff, unable to grab the keys from his hand.


Harville took a step back. “You gotta calm down, boss. Mrs. Wilkes said I wasn’t allowed to let you go if you were going to get into trouble right away. She was quite clear on that. She said if you were going to do anything stupid, you’d be better off locked up.”


Frederick wanted to yell, but stopped himself. Yelling at Harville wasn’t going to get him out of this cell. He needed to convince his concierge that he was a calm and reasonable man. Once he was out, he could drop his mask. After a few deep breaths, he announced, “I’m calm. Now let me out.”


Harville needed no more proof. First the cell door, then the handcuffs fell open.


Frederick wasted no time with thanks but pushed past his rescuer and out of the office into the square. Harville followed close at his heels.


The standoff had already started. Hemmert stood in the center of the square, near the fountain, his gun already drawn and aimed at the foursome standing in front of The American. From his vantage point, Frederick could see Elizabeth, Anne, and Wilkes lined up and wearing the same clothes they had worn on the day they arrived. Next to Wilkes stood Russell Elliot in a suit he had borrowed from his brother-in-law. From this distance, it was hard for Frederick to tell the men apart. The morning crowd that typically milled about the square, flowing from storefront to storefront before ebbing away as the heat of the day grew stronger, had clustered around the perimeter of the square, as far away from Hemmert as they could get while still observing the action.


“Give up, Elliot, and I’ll spare your companions,” Hemmert offered. “This is your last chance. I’ll give you to the count of three. Eins. Zwei.”


The sound of “drei” was drowned by the report of the pistol finally firing. In all the time that Frederick had known the German, Hemmert had never actually fired that pistol. It had been a decorative piece on his uniform, no more functional than a shiny gold button. It was not until two days ago, when Hemmert had wielded it like a club, that the gun had shown any utility at all.


It was Anne who fell. It was Elizabeth who screamed, a sound that pierced Frederick’s heart. She observed the fallen form of her sister and screamed a second time while Wilkes dropped to his knees to give what aid he could to his wife.


Frederick started to run across the square but Harville tackled him before the second step. The mood of the crowd had been hushed, subdued, observant, but watching a murder -- and Frederick did not doubt the shot would prove fatal -- made them skittish and uneasy. The murmuring grew to random shouts. There was a powderkeg here if someone would provide a match.


The spark came from an unlikely source. Benny, the thieving orphan, ran from the fringes and latched onto Hemmert’s arm before he aimed for a second shot. The boy was strong and wiry for his size as Frederick could attest, and Hemmert had a tough time shaking him off. But they were unequally matched and it was only a matter of time. With a hard shove, Hemmert sent the boy sprawling across the sand. As the boy started to get up for a second attack, Hemmert fired, and fired again.


The crowd fell deathly silent, and Frederick heard in that silence the orders for Hemmert’s execution. A few merchants began to advance on him and he whipped his gun around to them to stave them off. It worked for a time, but just as Benny stood no chance against Hemmert, so Hemmert stood no chance against a native crowd aching for his blood. As the menace grew closer, Hemmert fired another shot. A man fell.


Then a different shot rang out, from another part of the square, close enough to Frederick that it might have come from on top of him. The German’s neck whipped forward sharply and he fell lifeless to the sand as the crowd rushed in to claim his body.


Harville kept his head buried but Frederick craned his neck to see who had assassinated the Gestapo. Croft was standing by him with a hard look on his face that Frederick had never seen. In his hand the metallic flash of a gun appeared briefly and was gone.


Croft caught Frederick’s eye and grunted in satisfaction. “I’ve been waiting for that for ages.”

---

It was always Edward Wentworth, Frederick's brother, who was meant to travel the world. Edward, with his quiet curiosity, his innate grasp of almost any situation, had seemed to possess a calling in life.


When Edward announced to his family that he had finally saved enough to go to Italy, his siblings greeted the news with a content inevitability. In a look shared between the two, Frederick and Sarah wondered if their brother would ever come home from such a trip. Both suspected he would join the first religious order to admit him, and then they would receive a cable stating their brother was remaining in Europe indefinitely.


Edward had saved his money. He had bought a ticket on a trans-Atlantic steamer. His passport was ready, his visas were in order. He had learned passable Italian from an immigrant who worked on his line. He had even arranged a leave of absence at the factory: as long as he returned in four months, they would take him back.


And then the unthinkable happened. He met a girl. This was not just any girl; she was the girl who changed everything.


"You've got to meet Angela," Sarah informed Frederick as the day of Edward's departure drew closer. "I believe she's the one, and I think Edward believes it too. I'll bet you he doesn't stay in Italy after all. I'll bet you he even cuts short his stay. Ha! It wouldn't surprise me if he popped the question before he left."


Frederick had not observed his brother with this mystery woman, so he was skeptical. "Don't make Edward out to be someone he's not," he cautioned his sister. "He's never been girl crazy."


"That's exactly my point!" Sarah exclaimed, undeterred. "You know how he is: it's like pulling teeth to get him to express any interest at all. But not with Angela! He's in love! For the first time in his life, he's in love. Do you know what this means?"


Frederick only thought that it meant his sister was imagining things, but Edward brought up the topic himself the next week.


"Frederick, I have a problem," he said, getting quickly to the point. "I can't go to Italy. You see, it's Angie..."


Frederick was disappointed. "She told you not to go?!"


"No, nothing like that," Edward assured him. "She'd never do something like that. It's me; I don't want to leave her. I can't go."


Frederick thought it was wrong for his brother not to trust this woman for the few months he'd be gone. If Angela would wait for him, then surely Edward could go. And if she wouldn't wait for him, then surely Edward would be better off leaving, and getting the messy part over with.


"I didn't expect you to understand," Edward said, sadly smug. "I'm not going, and you can't change my mind. I just wanted to ask you a favor."


Frederick abused his brother's stupidity a little longer, berating him for all that wasted expense. "You can be sure you won't get any money back now. Even if you found a sucker to buy your ticket from you -- at a heavy discount -- you can't cash in that passport. And what are you going to do about a job, and a place to live? They've already found someone to take your shift, and you can't afford rent without a paycheck."


This was exactly the segue that Edward was hoping for. "That's where my favor comes in," said he, finally interrupting Frederick's harangue. "I want you to go in my place. If you go, it'll all work out. I'll take your shift at the factory, and you'll take my berth on the ship. Use my passport; we look enough alike. Whether it's Ed or Fred Wentworth, what do they care?"


Frederick was not quickly persuaded, but in the end he capitulated. He would go to Europe and his brother would stay behind and get engaged. If Edward planned it correctly, Frederick would be back in plenty of time to stand up as best man at the wedding.


Of course, Frederick never made it home. Instead he fell in love, just as utterly and even more rapidly than his brother. For a while, he could see the sense in what Edward had done, abandoning an outmoded dream and reaching for the new. It seemed like a greater sacrifice to walk away from Anne than to turn his back on anything else.


But then Anne had walked away from him. The daydream of introducing his family to Mrs. Frederick Wentworth twisted painfully into the galling act of witnessing his brother's joy. He didn't know how he would bear it without throwing gloom over Edward's wedding. Upon reflection, he realized he didn't have to. It was far easier to miss his return voyage than to deal with well-meaning friends and family heaping pity on him when they learned of his disappointment.


He missed Edward's wedding, and Sarah's the year following. He missed christenings and promotions. He missed his brother-in-law being transferred to Virginia. He missed so many mundane things that he didn't even realize how they added up.


He passed himself off as a man who didn't care. For the most part, it was true. Life had lost a lot of worth in Italy. Something he didn’t even know he cherished had been exposed as a cheap sham, and he had borne the loss for so long that it seemed normal. It wasn't until two nights ago that he could feel the true value of things seep back into the world but watching Anne’s life snuffed out sent him right back to where he started.


He was adrift again. He might as well die on the sand for all that it mattered. And if someone didn't rescue him soon, he probably would.