“Much has changed here since you’ve been gone.”
“The entire world has changed in the past fifteen years.”
Hermann glanced out the window as if he were looking for someone, and Max turned with him.
“Where is Annika?” he asked.
“Not far.”
“May I see her?”
“I don’t believe it’s a good idea,” Hermann said. “The memories are hard for her.”
“They are hard for all of us.”
But Hermann didn’t relent. Max had wanted to ask Annika about the treasure, but he’d also wanted to thank her for caring for Luzi until the end.
Was this why Hermann was acting strange? Was he worried that Max would somehow steal Annika away? He’d loved her, like a sister, but he couldn’t imagine loving anyone else like he’d loved Luzi.
“Did you ever find your mother?” Hermann asked as he stepped toward the door. Max followed him.
“I followed her to America, after the war.” He didn’t tell the man how he’d helped the Allies, escorting messages and people alike across borders that were supposed to be secured. Many here in Austria might hate him if they knew what he had done.
He hadn’t told anyone about the treasure either. People were being indicted today for stealing valuables from Jewish families during the war. He hadn’t wanted to steal anything. He’d wanted to keep their belongings safe. Be a banker, in one sense, like his father, with holdings for the future. But it would be difficult to convince a judge of his innocence when he couldn’t give an account for the things he’d hidden away.
“What happened to the things I buried?” he asked, his voice low so neither the housekeeper nor anyone else could hear.
“I don’t know.”
“But Annika would—”
“When the Gestapo came to search,” Hermann said slowly, scratching his cheek, “they took all the heirlooms.”
Max studied the man’s face, the perspiration beading along his hairline. He’d never been any good at lying—one of the reasons Max hadn’t told him where the treasure was hidden. But Annika had known. If Herr and Frau Stadler sold the items that they’d safeguarded, the guilt was on their heads.
Max held up the Bambi book. “This used to be my favorite.”
“What the Nazis didn’t destroy, Annika wanted to keep in honor of your family.”
“May I keep this one now?” He may never read the story again, but the book reminded him of all that was once happy in his home.
“Of course.”
He thought Hermann might ask if there was anything else he wanted from his family’s things, but his former friend was silent. Max tucked the book in his satchel, and Hermann watched him from the door until he crossed into the forest.
He’d already arranged passage to New York Harbor—he should go directly back to the station, take the next train out to the port at Caen, but it wasn’t right for Hermann to keep him from seeing Annika one last time. He wasn’t a threat. Only an old friend.
He’d learned how to stay hidden during the war, and he hid now in the trees, watching the courtyard and the gardens. As morning turned into afternoon, a BMW drove up the lane. Awoman dressed in a yellow blouse and denim capri pants emerged from the vehicle, a wide-brimmed summer hat on her head. Three children tumbled out behind her, a toddler and two girls around eight and ten, he surmised, and then an older youth, a young man about fifteen or sixteen, stepped out of the passenger door.
Annika was no longer a kitten. She’d grown into an elegant woman who seemed to have aged well in the past fifteen years. The little boy took one of her hands. Then the girls and the young man joined them as they spun in a circle, laughing together until they fell onto the grass. Annika’s hat tumbled off her head, and when she reached for it, Max saw her face. Saw what he never imagined he would see again.
It was Luzi there before him, her smile the one that had enchanted him the night of their dance, the eyes that stole his heart.
Luzia Weiss was alive.
But the Nazis had logged her name meticulously in their extermination records at Ravensbrück.
Whom had they taken away in 1939?
