“Did you attend the parade?” she asked.
“Yes, so my father can tell whoever he must that his son was there.”
She sighed. “I wish I could go outside with you, if only for an hour or two.”
“I’ll ask your mother.”
When Luzi shook her head, a soft strand of hair fell forward across her white blouse. “Mother thinks only of the music.”
His fingers drummed against his leg, aching to brush that strand back over her shoulder, but he reached for her hand instead. “I think only of you.”
She blushed.
“One day soon we must leave this city.”
“My parents will never let me go.”
A picture ran through Max’s mind of him and Luzi hand in hand, husband and wife, taking a train to Czechoslovakia or south to Italy. Far away from Hitler and all those who seemed to worship him.
“I have a friend who can make papers for us,” he whispered. “A wedding certificate and passports for Herr and Frau Dornbach, married this year.”
Luzi glanced toward the door before focusing on him again. “Father has started making inquiries for our family.”
“To emigrate?”
She nodded. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“I’ll accompany you—”
“Away with you now,” Frau Weiss interrupted them as she stepped into the room, carrying Marta. The baby’s cheeks were red and streaked with her tears. “Luzia must practice.”
Max slowly released her hand before turning toward Frau Weiss. “It hasn’t been five minutes.”
“Clearly you are not a musician, Max.”
“No.” He smiled. “But I have the deepest appreciation for the violin.”
Luzi laughed and then quickly choked back the laughter when her mother stamped her foot.
“You shall hear her at the ball.”
He waited a moment, hoping that Luzi would contradict her mother, but her eyes were focused on the music stand.
Baby Marta squirmed in Frau Weiss’s arms. “On your way now,” the woman said, shooing Max again. He glanced back at Luzi. She’d placed her bow on the strings, preparing to play.
He lingered by the door, hoping to hear Luzi’s voice one more time.
“May I hold her?” Luzi asked her mother.
“Another hour, and then you can rest.”
The memory of her violin trailed Max through the streets as he turned toward Vienna’s old town. What would it be like to move with Luzi and her family to a place like England or America or even South America, where other European Jews had gone? Aplace where Luzi and her family would be safe?
They would have to leave soon. He would be eighteen in December, the age of conscription. Like so many students in his city, he’d been planning to join the Austrian Army to fight against the invasion of Nazi Germany, but their army never shot a single bullet to ward off Hitler.
Max would never salute, and he would never fight for that man.
CHAPTER 5
