“Who is it?” Charlotte asks.
“The researcher in Vienna.” I scan the email. “She’s going to look for the newspaper photograph from 1938. When she finds it, she’ll email it along with the caption so we know whose picture Annika taped in her book.”
“You think there’s a love story there, don’t you?”
I shrug. “Perhaps.”
Charlotte knows I’m a romantic. An undercover romantic, but a hopeless one nonetheless.
“When did you start keeping secrets from me?” I ask as Charlotte checks her phone again.
“It’s not actually a secret....”
“Then tell me.”
She smiles over at me as one who knows me well, better even than I know myself. “Sometimes surprises can be good, Calisandra.”
“Not in my experience.”
“Then perhaps we’ll have to change your experience.”
But I don’t want to change. The steadiness of my life, the nest I’ve built around myself, keeps me safe. Other people, like Dr. Nemeth and my sister and Charlotte, could step outside their walls and experience life on the outside, but me, I’m quite secure inside the twigs and leaves I’ve plucked for myself. No surprises necessary.
CHAPTER 12
ANNIKA
LAKE HALLSTATT, AUSTRIA
JUNE 1938
The sky had collapsed onto Lake Hallstatt during the night, asoft quilt settling over the water like a blanket, hiding the flicker of sun. At dawn’s break, Annika plodded back toward the barn to milk the goats, swimming through white waves of fog instead of the blue ones lapping against the dock.
After chores, she prepared eggs and fruit along with coffee in an attempt to revive Vati after his previous night’s dance with the lager, but he didn’t answer when she knocked on his door.
Around nine, Hermann arrived with a toolbox in one hand, a lunch pail in the other.“Guten Morgen,”he said, setting down his toolbox so he could tip his cap.
She glanced back toward the closed door down the corridor, embarrassed that Vati wasn’t awake to meet him. “He’s still sleeping.”
Hermann looked down at his boots, and she hated him, or anyone, thinking that her father was a drunk.
“He’s been feeling a bit under the weather lately.”
“Of course.”
Hermann stood a foot taller than Annika, and his blond hair, more white than yellow, was in need of a cut. He wore the same attire he’d worn every day he came to work with Vati, a flannel shirt over thick arms, denim overalls. Carried the same silver pail and toolbox. With everything changing in their country, this sameness comforted her in a way. Now that Sarah was gone, and with Max still in Vienna, Hermann was her only friend.
“Did Sarah find you before she left?”
Hermann seemed surprised at the question. “I don’t know why she’d be looking for me.”
Annika shrugged. “She wanted to give you something.”
Instead of inquiring about Sarah, Hermann nodded toward the window. “Should I start working?” he asked as if she were directing the chapel project in her father’s absence.
“I suppose.”
The aluminum percolator whistled on the stove, and she poured him a cup of steaming coffee. They had no sugar in the house, and while she’d gladly offer him goat milk, Hermann preferred to drink his coffee black. He downed it quickly, as if he welcomed the heat, and thanked her for it.
