Sometimes she thought Vati blamed her for her mother’s death, though she would never, ever have done anything to harm the woman she’d loved more than anyone else in her entire life. When she was eleven, she’d stepped away from school, thinking it was only for a season as she nursed her mother and cared for the estate. But in spite of the medicine and rest, her mother grew even more ill. While Vati continued to work, Annika took her mother bytrain to Salzburg once a week to see a specialist who was never able to diagnose exactly what was stealing her life away.
Then Annika had stayed with her in the hospital, feeling as helpless as Vati. He couldn’t stand to see his wife in such a state, and near the end, when Kathrin Knopf was sleeping most of her days and nights, Vati stopped visiting altogether. Mama told Annika that he was grieving, that she must understand his pain as well. She tried for her mother’s sake, but she never understood how he could abandon his wife in her last days.
Sometimes she missed her mother so much her entire body ached. Other days it seemed there was nothing left to feel, as if she were completely numb to the pain. But the grief always returned. Mama had been gone for almost four years now, but some mornings when Annika woke up, she pretended her mother was still here.
Mama would have sent Annika back to Volksschule—her own schooling had ended at the age of ten, and she wanted her daughter to learn everything that she had not. But no matter what Annika said to try to convince her father, he thought school was a waste, as was the weekly service in Hallstatt’s evangelical church.
She turned the newspaper page again and scanned a spread of pictures, the members of a much higher society dancing at a Viennese ball.
Her gaze froze on the picture of Max Dornbach at the top of the page. Her Max with his warm smile, the one he’d displayed whenever they played in the lake.
Yet he was dressed differently than she’d ever seen him, and in his arms—he was guiding a stunning woman around the dance floor, a woman with dark hair and a pale silk gown that shimmered with an entire galaxy of sequins in the light, as if she were a meteorshower on display. A woman who looked at Max as if her world revolved around him.
Annika pressed her hand against the fold of the paper, deciding right then that she didn’t like sequins.
Max’s name was listed on the right column of the page with the names of others in the photographs. Luzia Weiss—that was the name of the lady dancing with him.
Leaning back against the chair, Annika closed her eyes and forced her frizzy hair into a braid, the tip of it brushing her collar. She wished it were long and silky like Luzia’s hair, perfectly smooth. Wished she had a long gown to wear to a ball.
What would it be like to dance “The Blue Danube” with Max? His hazel eyes, the color of sun and pine, gazing down, her own face flushed from his attention even as her feet kept time with the music. In the sea of dancers that swept through her mind, she pretended that Max was smiling because he was dancing with her.
The stove crackled before her, begging for more fuel, and she reached for the scissors on the counter and cut out all the photographs around Max and Luzia, crumpling the paper into balls before feeding one of them to the fire.
She looked at the photograph again, at Max focused on the woman beaming in his arms. Then she cut Luzia out of the photograph and burned her portrait in the flames with the other old news.
The picture of Max and a roll of tape in her hand, she tiptoed down the narrow hallway and opened the door to her bedroom. Inside, she knelt beside her bed and pulled out a metal box, removing her worn copy ofBambi: A Life in the Woods, a gift from her mother. She used to read about the author, Felix Salten, in the papers. A Jewish writer who lived in Vienna.
Had he left Austria now like Herr Walter?
She tugged the book to her chest.
Bambiwas a sad story in one sense, but she related deeply to the roebuck whose mother died, growing up with a father who remained distant for most of his life. A novel about those who chose to kill for power and even entertainment.
Sometimes she liked to think of Max as a strong roebuck, herself as Faline, whom he loved. It didn’t end so well between the deer in Salten’s book, but it would be different for Annika and Max. They shared a history that stretched back much longer than any girl he met in Vienna.
If Vati ever found this photograph of Max, he’d be so angry at her for entertaining silly thoughts about the Dornbach son. He’d probably rip up the photograph like she’d done with Luzia’s and feed the scraps of newspaper into the stove.
But Max would be safe in these pages—Vati never opened any of her books.
She taped the picture of Max to a page near the back of her book, and after saying a prayer for him, she slipped the box under the bed.
Today she would pretend she was Luzia Weiss. And that Max Dornbach was offering her his hand, smiling down at her.
“It’s a fine day for a swim.”
Annika squealed as she turned from the goat, throwing her milk pail to the ground before almost knocking Sarah Leitner over with her hug.
“I’ve missed you,” Annika said. They’d been the best of friendsin school, and until this summer, Sarah had visited often when the weather grew warm, wanting to swim together. Annika’s bathing suit was still folded in her bureau, waiting for Sarah to return.
“I’ve missed you as well.” Sarah was dressed in a floral summer dress and sandals, her hair neatly curled. And she held an olive-green knapsack in one of her hands, hidden partially behind herback.
“Oh no.” Annika tried to brush the dirt from Sarah’s dress, but that only seemed to spread it around. “I’ve messed you up, haven’t I?”
“I don’t mind being messed up for a hug,” Sarah said. “My brother said you came by twice last week.”
“I was hoping you could swim.” Sarah’s brother had said she was working at a nearby farm this summer. In Sarah’s growing up, Annika wasn’t certain her friend would be able to play in the lake anymore.
“Is Hermann here?” Sarah asked, looping a strand of hair behind her ear.
