Josh has questions for Annika about the treasure, but it doesn’t matter so much now, at least to me, whether she calls. Except perhaps she could tell me why Luzia was at the estate and if she remembers any stories about a baby who was taken to France. Then I would know...
“We missed you at dinner last night,” he says. “My date fell asleep over her food. I had to carry her back to the inn.”
“You’re an amazing dad, Josh.”
“Not particularly...”
“I’m a bit of an expert in this area.”
He eyes me. “You’ve studied good dads?”
“No...” In that moment, I decide to inch a bit further out of my shell. “Let’s just say my father wouldn’t have carried me home from a restaurant. For that matter, he would never have taken me to a restaurant that didn’t have a drive-through.”
“Ah...”
“It gives me a great appreciation for all the men in this world who are excellent dads.”
The Hallstatt ferry embarks from the dock on our left, cruising toward the train station on the other side of the lake.
“What did you find in Vienna?” he asks.
I sigh. “Sadness, I’m afraid.”
“It seems as if sadness is stamped all over this place.”
“So much beauty and yet so much sorrow.”
“It seems to linger here, doesn’t it?” Together we watch a swan circle the water below us. “The memories of the many who died seem to cling to these hills.”
I reach for my coffee mug again, and even though it’s cold now, I wrap my hands around it. “I’ve uncovered a story thatgoes beyond just these hills. It relates to Annika’s story, but it’s a personal journey for me as well.”
I wasn’t planning to tell him, but it pours out of me, this story about the woman who has journeyed with me for most of my life. I tell him that Charlotte knows me well and loves me for exactly who I am.
“Yesterday I found information about a woman who I think might have been Charlotte’s mother,” I say. “And then I discovered she was killed at Ravensbrück.”
“Does Charlotte know?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“What was her mother’s name?”
“Luzia Weiss.”
Josh nods slowly, as if he’s soaking in this information. Then his eyes grow wide.
“What is it?” I ask.
He turns toward me, but he’s looking over my shoulder, at a hill beyond the inn. “There’s something I need to show you.”
CHAPTER 37
LAKE HALLSTATT, AUSTRIA
APRIL 1939
The ornately carved and worn casket that housed Baron Christoph Eyssl von Eysselsberg came via boat in the evening hours, the second week in April. It was a strange sight to watch the pallbearers carry it up the bank on their shoulders, starlight sprinkling the casket with a silver dust.
Luzi was hidden behind the wall, but Annika watched the odd procession from a window seat in the library. Herr Pfarrer in his formal black vestments led the men and the ancient casket across the estate by candlelight, to the unpainted platform in the chapel. The church had faithfully kept its promise from centuries past.
