“He took the trolley to the Rathaus to look for you.” Her mother scrutinized her. “You’ve stained your gown.”
“Have I?” She looked down at the brown stain near her waist, the place where Ernst had spit on her.
Mutti stepped back. “I’ll get some soda and water to clean it.”
As Luzi moved toward her bedroom, ready to change out of her dress, she began humming “Village Swallows from Austria,” trying to remember the dance.
She prayed that her mother was right. The music would carry her entire family, migrating like the swallows of Austria, across their country’s borders and perhaps across an ocean as well. They would get their visas, and then they’d all be safe from men like Ernst Schmid.
CHAPTER 9
The desk in my apartment overlooks Mount Vernon’s Main Street, quiet now after this morning’s parade crowd has returned home. When I’m not helping Brie with the store downstairs, I’m typically sitting here by the window, researching and writing posts on children’s authors like Felix Salten who use their life story as fodder for their writing.
More than ten thousand people follow the Magic Balloon blog—librarians, kids, parents, other bookstore owners. Readers, I’ve discovered, enjoy hearing about the successes of their favorite authors like J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, and Theodor Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss), but even more, they like to read about their failings.
The failures give hope to people both young and old. And the biography posts, along with our Lost & Found page, generateenough traffic to our site that Brie and I have managed to supplement our sales income with a bit of advertising.
I tap onto the bookmark for our website, and a colorful bouquet of balloons lifts off from the bottom of my screen, the balloons floating to the top of the page and then dividing neatly into six topics—About,Blog,Shop,Lost & Found,Events, andContact. The site, with all its whimsical colors and moving pieces, is designed to appeal to kids, but Brie and I want people of all ages to be able to navigate it.
After logging in to the dashboard, I click on Lost & Found to update the page. Each item is listed with a bullet point—aRoger Clemens rookie card, a silver ring, an assortment of letters, photographs, and certificates. Visitors can click on each piece for a description of the used book, lost item, and sometimes a photo.
I don’t include photographs of the valuable items; if anyone emails me about being the potential owner, I can ask for specifics. Plenty of people have responded to my listings, but I’ve never matched anything with its original owner.
Under a new bullet point, I type,Unusual list found inside German edition ofBambi.Then I link the headline to a full description.
Early edition of Austrian book,Bambi: a Life in the Woods. Owner named Annika Knopf, dated 1932 by her mother. Unique list inscribed on the pages.
I leave off the info about the photograph and Schloss Schwansee—those will help me identify the original owner or her family if someone does inquire.
My online search for an Annika Knopf has revealed several contemporary women, but between the publication date of the book and the mother’s inscription along with the neatness of thescript inside, I’m fairly certain Annika lived most, if not all, of her life pre-Internet. Back when people of all ages treasured their books and spent hours practicing their handwriting.
Perhaps Annika was a girl with a grand imagination. Or perhaps she was keeping a list of her family’s heirlooms or things she wanted to buy one day. If I could reunite her book with her family, that would be the happiest ending of all for me.
Rain begins channeling down my window, and when I glance outside, I see a family of five crossing the street, each of its members clutching an ice cream cone and smiling in spite of the weather. Iturn quickly back to my iPad screen.
At the top of my inbox are two articles about Felix Salten from Sophie, the Vienna researcher I’ve connected with online. With the help of Google, I begin translating the first one.
Salten was born in Hungary, the grandson of an orthodox rabbi, but his family moved to Austria soon after his birth because the government in Vienna began granting full citizenship to Jewish immigrants in 1867. Salten wroteBambiin 1923, and it was such a huge success that he sold the film rights a decade later to an American director for a thousand bucks. This director later sold it to the studio of Walt Disney, who released it in 1942—ironically, while Salten and his family were exiled from their home.
The second article says Salten fled Vienna soon after Hitler annexed Austria to Germany. Many Jewish people tried to leave Vienna during the following year. Salten and his wife attempted—and failed—to obtain a visa through the American consulate, but their daughter helped them immigrate to Switzerland before the war began.
In the novel, Bambi’s mother tells him not to look back, and I wonder about his creator—did Felix Salten ever look back? Surelyhe must have grieved the loss of the city he’d once loved and the thousands there—about sixty-five thousand Jewish brothers and sisters—who were killed during the Holocaust.
I have a little over a month to finish my article on Salten and then start gathering info about another author for a new post, one with a happy ending, of course. People like to hear about the failures, but most of them read children’s books because they also want to read about their favorite characters fighting to overcome whatever obstacles are in their way, triumphing in the end.
I thank Sophie for her help, then send one more request, asking her to find the Vienna newspaper from May 6, 1938.
Someone knocks on my door, and I fold over the cover of my iPad before crossing the hardwood. It’s my sister, her apron still streaked with chocolate from this morning, her hair strung back behind her ears.
“You want me to take over?” I ask.
“Yes, please.” She loops the apron strap around her finger. “Ethan said the boys are about to drive him mad.”
“From one zoo to another for you.”
My sister lives a mile away from the store, in one of those Victorian homes on Gambier Street with their high ceilings and winding staircases. The house keeps Ethan and his carpentry skills quite busy, with the added benefit of offering plenty of space for the twins to play. On cold or stormy days, they’ve been known to roller skate across the cement floors in the basement and play leapfrog down the foyer.
She checks the time on her phone. “It’s only an hour until close.”
