The Witching Snakes pt 28

Bai Suzhen, now Agatha, enjoys the Gilded Age, Taking Lovers Among the Addicts and Artists. Archduke Ferdinand dies. Agatha Accidentally Insults Sarah. Diplomacy Fails.

Read Part 27

The Great Love to End All Loves

They all ran into death; just joined the soil without thinking. Some made plans for after the war. Many dreamed of a post-war China embracing democracy and standing shoulder to shoulder with the empires. The Qing was gone. No one would kowtow to empresses or court eunuchs. They dug the trenches and coughed; sent their pay to villages and slums.

In that time, Bai Suzhen was Agatha. She took lovers from the painters in Vienna and the Unionists in Paris. Sarah and Johann and Fritz and Ivan and Natasha welcomed her with kisses and artwork. Sarah paid her to pose for water colors. Fritz sketched her when he thought she wasn't paying attention. The coffee was Turkish and the scones were stale.

Natasha died of a morphine overdose. Her husband cried for days. After her funeral, he stopped talking to the strange woman that had joined them in their bed when nights were dark and love was uncomplicated. Agatha tried to talk to him, even kiss him. He ran away.

When the powers stumbled into their war, Johann invited everyone to his parent's vacation home to celebrate. Serbian independence was nigh. All toasted the end of the royal family with its boots on the neck of Europe. They had no care about the future. Most laughed about the happy accident that placed the assassin in the same street. Sarah fought with Fritz over Agatha - a stupid fight with tears and recrimination. Agatha tried to assuage the pain as Fritz broke his best plate. In a desperate distraction, Agatha asked Sarah about her Jewish grandfather.

"How dare you say that?"

"Natasha mentioned it. I'm just asking."

"What in damnation did she know? You believed her?"

"Why would she lie?"

"How would she know?"

"You're a cool fish," said Fritz with sarcasm.

"Never say that again."

"What would it matter if you were?" said Fritz. Agatha saw a cruel bemusement in Fritz's eye.

"Is this coming from you or Agatha?"

"It's coming from me. I don't hate Jews."

"Well go fuck a Jew or a Jewess and just leave me alone."

"Sarah."

"No."

"Come on, Sarah. I didn't know."

"Didn't know what? Are all my friends are calling me a kike?"

Fritz didn't speak. Agatha bent her head in anticipation of a greater outburst. Sarah always dyed her hair blond. She constantly asked about her nose.

Later Agatha told a tall woman the story about the scholar who dreamed that he was a butterfly only to wake up and wonder if he was a butterfly dreaming that he was a man. The woman started asking questions. Why he would think that? He was awake! Was he randomly getting naked on the street or punching koala bears?

"No group of people shall be governed by another group - be they plutocrats or kings or princes or labor leaders," shouted Ivan holding court from another room. Ivan had been smoking opium. He wrote lyrical poetry celebrating the proletariat. Agatha helped him write his Qing Dynasty Obituaries, even coached him concerning the Empress Dowager Empress, but she confused him. Cixi was an imperialist who also fought against the British. In the end, he condemned her as the dragon lady and Agatha couldn't hide her disappointment.

Agatha got into a conversation with a Berliner who had been in town for a year and decided that he hated art, hated the theater and hated all the pretty gold paintings. He was nervous. Agatha tried to assure him. Society is always on the brink of collapse but it seldom drives over the cliff. Nothing was going to happen. Her friends celebrated the death of the empires. Agatha wanted to fall in love a the serious man. Only he was in love with Fritz.

Agatha remembered it well - the last great night of the 20th century when everyone had hope. At the time, the party felt petty and shallow. The mayflies weren't even patient enough to wait before jumping on the flames. In the next months, they fell in love repeatedly - three or four at a time.

On the day that diplomacy failed, her friends put on a brave front. They weren't going to die. Ivan declared that no war is short, especially a war between such heavily armed groups. Fritz and Johann alternated between anarchist odes and Austrian-Hungarian propaganda. No one would join the war. They looked forward to a world free of the jingoists.

Read Part 29