She was even more breathtaking and in many ways becoming more the Sophie her father remembered now that the weight of all this was being slowly lifted away. We confided in each other many things and she shared what she heard in those meetings with Knut. None of it made any sense and she said the same exact words to her father who also didn't understand any of it.
I tried to let it all soak in and at first it was all just gibberish. And it still remained gibberish in my conscious mind. I asked after all those years, did any of it make any sense and she nodded no, not any improvement in her understanding. She thought that now they were free to speak with one another that maybe in our shared collective minds we might start to figure out this whole Artesian thing.
When I told her what Wolf had said about this all being a silly hoax she said that might be true as her father doesn't lie about such things. If anything he will just withhold information and slowly release little tidbits at his own pace. But she thinks something changed in the translation and perhaps what the Capital thought was a silly hoax, might actually have connected with people like Kart Knutmudsen and he saw things differently.
As she rested her head on my arm, with her soft hair gently brushing against me she confessed that when she was in those meetings, each subsequent sermons it was as if Karl's way with words danced inside her head and made her ears start to glow. She couldn't quite understand what it was or why it made her feel that way, but only that she saw Stephan must have felt it first. This dismayed her as she knew she would soon lose him and very quickly she would be lost too.
Karl knew everything. It's because she told him. She offered herself in exchange for Stephan. He politely refused and then summarily rejected both of us from the Artesians. It devastated Stephan the most. He most likely had already become a willing convert at that point.
Perhaps Karl was fearful of Wolf and what he would to him, to all the Artesians when he realized he brainwashed Stephan. Sophie demurred that was an easy answer and somewhat obvious, but Karl didn't seem the type to be afraid of people like Wolf. He was afraid, but certainly not of death.
That's what troubled her was she went through the charades of excoriating him while he was in prison, but something changed the night he died. He uttered something to her that didn't make any sense and bid her adieu. She had years to think about it and she felt in some ways, Karl got himself killed to help end it all and allow everyone to escape, Oliver, Ingrid, Sophie and even myself.
And while self-sacrifice sounds very much like the Knut, why run from the guards and force them to shoot him in the back? Prison has numerous ways he could have ended his life, even in a spectacular fashion to satisfy Wolf. Probably, only Karl would be the only one who can answer that. It would be about as profound as figuring out what this whole hoax of an Artesian, Muses or whatever the Politiburo wants us to believe its called or stands for.
What would be the next move? I had two more years on my sentence and while it was quite mild and my weekends were spent in total paradise with Sophie Gustafson in my arms, I felt things would be ripped from me yet again. Sophie stretched her arms and leaned in closer, she said Wolf wouldn't do that. He's now told you everything he probably knows, short of actual names of the higher ups and even she doesn't know that. Her father does things sometimes when he is truly afraid and he probably is seeking someone to look after her.
She admires her brother Sigmund, but he's not like Stephan and certainly not Wolf. He's just another tool. He is her brother and she will always love him, more than she could love anyone, but she is honest of his faults and shortcomings.
But today was not to wallow in self pity and reflection. She invited me she had additional guests and was hosting a private garden party with a dozen of friends from university. They all gathered round a large seating on a veranda overlooking the pool. It was the same ground of girls that once included Ingrid Glikmann, but now only her older sister Martha was in attendance.
Martha was standoffish and made her introduction. While she looked very much like her sister, she was a bit taller, but with a more average appearance. She was well aware of the Gustafson's and wary to know me beyond my name. I obliged and gave her room as I listened to a dozen ladies speak at a blitz about anything and everything.
The party concluded a few hours later and my time was done. A pair of prison guards arrived in a car and ushered me into the back seat.
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