This new tone frightened her. “I don’t understand.”
He scooped out two more mounds of dirt, and she dropped the bag into the hole. Then he pushed the dirt in and smoothed his shovel back and forth over the ground as if he were trying to iron out the wrinkles. “Come along,” he finally said, hiking toward the wall of pine trees that separated this plot from Schloss Schwansee, his family’s castle.
“What’s wrong, Max?”
“The parliament approved our annexation into Germany.”
“I know,” she replied, glad she was already privy to this bit of news. “Vati is pleased.”
“The German Reich is no longer willing to tolerate the suppression of ten million Germans across the border.”
That’s what Hitler had said on the wireless last month. Salvation was what he promised, the rescue of Austrians who’d been mistreated.Anschluss—as he called it—was prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, but their new Führer didn’t seem to be daunted by treaties or the fact that the Austrian chancellor wasn’t interested in a union between his country and Germany.
Her father had celebrated theAnschlussat the beer hall. He’d fought as a foot soldier in the Great War, and this new union, he thought, not only would revitalize Austria, it was reparation for their empire’s bitter losses twenty years ago. This time, Vati said, no one would defeat a unified Germany.
Max stopped at the edge of the trees, light from the castle’s windows filtering out onto the lawn, erasing the blue haze of moon. “Your father’s pleased because he isn’t Jewish.”
Annika shrugged. “None of us are Jewish.” Except her friend Sarah, but Hitler would hardly concern himself with the Jewish Austrians who lived back in these Alps. Only summer tourists—and the occasional skier—visited their mountains and lake.
Max planted his hands on her shoulders, anchoring them so she couldn’t shrug again. She tried to focus on his eyes, but his touch electrified her, a jolt that ricocheted between her fingers, her toes.
“Adolf Hitler isn’t a savior. He’s the devil incarnate.” Max’s eyes flashed, the fierce edge in his voice frightening her. “And he won’t be satisfied with the devotion of our country,Kätzchen. He’ll want the hearts of our people, too.”
She’d heard the stories about Hitler and his thugs, about the years Hitler stirred up trouble in the streets of Austria, but still she protested. “Hitler’s home is in Berlin now.”
Max released her shoulders and stepped out from the mantle of pine. “It won’t stop him from trying to build his Reich here.”
Annika shivered as she followed him toward the cottage she shared with her father, though she tried to pretend that the trembling deep inside her, flaring across her skin, was from the cold. She’d never heard Max speak of politics before. Usually he talked about his animals or school or the music he loved in Vienna. She, his devoted audience, listened to his stories every summer and in the winter weeks when he came to ski.
To her right, the gray slate on the castle’s turrets glowed in the moonlight. Back in the seventeenth century, the owner of the local salt mine had built this place as a fortress between the mountains and the lake. The upkeep and expansions kept her father and now her employed year round, though one day she dreamed of being the mistress of this castle, sipping tea in the parlor instead of scrubbing its floors.
Max tucked his shovel into the large shed where Vati kept his tools and equipment. “You’d best go home. Before your father begins to worry.”
Annika dug her hands into the coat pockets. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“It’s only for a day.”
“Still, I’m glad.”
He lifted her right hand from the warmth of her pocket and pressed his lips against it. “Don’t let one of Hitler’s men steal your heart, Annika.”
He released her hand, but it stayed before her, suspended in the air.
Shouting erupted inside the main house, Herr Dornbach swearing. And then the voice of Frau Dornbach stole through theopen library window, yelling back at him. Max moved quickly through a side door that led into the castle, and then he closed the window to silence the fight, at least to her ears.
Annika shuffled across the ice-glazed grass, to the lakeshore. Birch benches were scattered across the property, but this bench near the reeds was her favorite.
Sitting, she pulled her arms out of the large sleeves and wrapped them tightly over her chest. Tiny clouds rose with her breath, each one climbing in the air as if it wanted to scale the mountain ridge that curled around the lake, a glorious sea creature guarding its den.
Moonlight shimmered on the water, and several lights flickered on the other side of the lake in the village called Hallstatt. When they were children, she and Max had dreamed about one day swimming across this expanse of lake together, racing to see who would win. They’d never done it, of course. Vati wouldn’t have cared if she tried, but Frau Dornbach took great care in keeping her only son safe.
Why had Herr Dornbach been yelling tonight? The arguing between him and Frau Dornbach had escalated this past summer, their words escaping through the windows and finding Annika in the garden or hammering nails into a board as she helped Vati build a bench or fix a wall.
Herr Dornbach yelled at Vati last summer as well, though usually because Vati didn’t arrive early enough for work, too sluggish after a night in the beer hall.
Sometimes she wondered if her parents would have fought like the Dornbachs if her mother had lived. Or perhaps Vati wouldn’t drink if her mother were still alive. Sometimes her father still called out to Kathrin—her mother—in his dreams, his sorrow a storm that shook the cottage rafters and pine walls.
When her father woke, he often called Annika’s name, but only because he wanted her to bring black coffee to chase away the fog in his brain.
