And meanwhile I’d have to find a way to live with Johannes’s cryptic words. He hadn’t answered my question. It would have been simple enough to reply that of course Brigitta had died of pneumonia, as easy to say as “Yes, she’s dead,” which he’d had no trouble confirming just seconds before. The thought that something worse, something sinister, had happened was too appalling to ponder.
I started for the staircase to my room to pack my things, my heart heavy.
As I climbed the stairs, I was reminded of what a seasoned nanny told me decades ago in London’s Hyde Park as we both pushed prams with babies tucked inside them.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking the children you nanny—or their parents—are your family. They’re not. And you’re not theirs.”
I had forgotten, grown careless, when it came to Brigitta. I’d given in fully to love.
If I could see that other nanny now, I’d tell her that though my soul felt fractured in this moment, I had no regrets over having loved her.
None.
•••
I didn’t sleep well that first night, although the Hotel Edelweiss was located on a quiet, tree-lined street near the prettiest part of theinnere Stadt. The gaping unknown and my unease about what might have really happened to Brigitta peppered the long wee hours with fits of wakefulness.
In the morning, I set about looking into nanny service organizations willing to take me—an American on a work visa—into their employ. I had never used a service before; I had been hired in London, Paris, and Vienna by word of mouth. I hadn’t known to that point how unnerving it was to stand in front of strangers, offer them the letter of recommendation from my last employer, and watch them read it word by word with no indication of any interest.
The service I visited in the morning did not want to hire an American whose work visa was due to expire. The service I went to in the afternoon wouldn’t speak with me at all other than to intimate that I was a fool for wanting to remain in Vienna. Though the American government hadn’t denounced the absorption of Austria into Germany, the American press had firmly done so. Not only that, but the Americans had only a consulate in Vienna now, not an embassy.
I returned to the hotel in the late afternoon, my thoughtssomersaulting. I didn’t want to go back to the States after nearly forty years in Europe—most of them wonderful—and especially not after having been let go. When I did return to America for good, I reasoned, it would be to retire. I would not go back before that, and certainly not when I was feeling like a failure. Maybe I needed to get outside of Vienna to look for a new posting. Salzburg, perhaps. Home to America, if it could be called that, was my last resort.
The second night at the hotel, I slept as fitfully as the first, and my dreams were filled with wraithlike creatures chasing me through a sprawling house with too many rooms and too many hallways, across floors that were crooked and splintering, and past walls mottled with mold. And all the while I was calling for Brigitta and unable to find her. I realized upon waking that I could not leave Vienna without some kind of answer. I had to know the truth of what had happened to Brigitta. I could only hope that Emilie Pichler wanted me to come that morning because she needed answers, too, and wanted me to help her uncover them.
After breakfast in the hotel, I took a tram back to Wieden.
The school’s front door was open, but the receptionist was not behind her desk and there were no sounds at all coming from the hallways or the classrooms beyond. The inside of the small one-story school was deathly quiet, even for summer break. Several boxes stacked one on top of another lined the hallway that led to the classrooms. Emilie Pichler appeared from her office directly behind the receptionist’s desk.
“Fraulein Calvert. I’m so pleased you came.” Emilie Pichler looked tired. “Please come in.” She motioned for me to join her in her office.
The little room was filled with bookcases and cabinets in various states of fullness and emptiness. Like in the hallway, boxes were stacked here, too.
“You are packing?” I asked as I took an offered chair.
Emilie sat down behind her desk and smiled weakly. “I am closing the school.”
“Closing it? Is the new government forcing you to?”
“No. This was my decision. My mother is in failing health. I am moving to Theresienfeld to care for her.”
“I see. I’m... I’m sorry to hear that.” I sensed there were other reasons but didn’t ask what they were. “This was a wonderful school,” I said instead. “You did amazing things here, Frau Pichler.”
Emilie’s weak smile intensified slightly. “Yes. For many years we did. And please call me Emilie. May I call you Helen?”
“Of course.”
A stretch of silence followed. I noticed there was no artwork on the woman’s desk, nor was she reaching for it in a drawer or a cabinet. Emilie was staring at me almost as if she wanted me to speak first.
“There is no artwork of Brigitta’s for me, is there?” I asked.
“I’m sorry I lied to you about that. I wanted to talk with you. Privately.”
“I wanted to talk to you, too.”
Emilie tipped her head in slight curiosity but didn’t respond. She was being careful.
“I don’t think Brigitta died from pneumonia,” I said boldly.
