The kaiser wanted conquests, and better to satisfy him with a beautiful mountain in Asia than a wretched war in Europe. To see if it was possible to conquer Everest to take the world’s highest mountain for Germany, for the fatherland. A renowned Alpine climber, he’d decided he wanted to see the Himalayas. He’d been traveling in Asia for five months prior. In the time he had left, he would think of their first days together, for it was those memories he would hold on to.

In only a few hours, he would say good-bye to her. “What are you looking for?” he would ask, following her gaze. He’d searched for her in the beginning, and always he’d found her perched somewhere high, somewhere solitary and still, her face lifted to the dawn sky and its fading stars. She always left the tent or cave or whatever shelter they’d found while it was still dark. He never found her beside him when he woke. As Max stared ahead of himself, into the darkness, she dressed, then quietly left their tent. And then, seeing that she’d hurt him, she’d kissed him and shaken her head no. For the first time in his life, he’d meant it. He wanted to remember the feel of her, the smell of her. He lay on his back in the dark, listening as her breath slowed and deepened, as she drifted off to sleep. “I don’t suppose there is anything I can say. And when it was over, as it was now, she would turn away, curl into herself, and sleep. It was hard and quick and without preliminaries. This woman wasn’t soft, and neither was her lovemaking. Soft, pliant women, who clung to him afterward, extorting promises and endearments. Max von Brandt, a German mountaineer, wondered this as he stroked the hair out of the face of the young woman lying next to him in the dark. Did all English girls make love like a man? Or was it only this one?

The wild rose jennifer donnelly