“Luzia is out for the day.”
He wrung his hands together. “I would never do anything to harm her. You know that.”
“You’re a threat, Max, whether or not you want to be. Your...persistencedraws attention that’s dangerous for all of us in these times.”
The words stung. “I want nothing but the best for her.”
“Then you must let her go, at least for this season.”
Max stumbled back from the door, catching himself on the banister as he tried to process her words. How could he avoid the woman he loved? The woman he would marry, no matter what the Nazis said.
He’d never actually spoken the words to Luzi, told her of his love, but she must know it. And it seemed that she loved him too. Her smile as they’d danced, it had been spellbinding. He knew during their waltz, just as he knew right now, that he’d never be able to love anyone like he loved her.
“Go home, Max,” Frau Weiss said. “You’ve been a good friend to us, but for your sake and for ours, we must say good-bye.”
“Only for a season,” he reminded her.
“A season...” The word trailed off as she shut the door.
He stared at the light grain of the oak, the flower etched on the beveled glass. He couldn’t fathom a future without Luzi, didn’t want to imagine his life without her. The violin breathed life into her, but to him, she was like the beautiful music that fed her soul. A melody that energized, inspired, and haunted him at the sametime.
Max left the food in the hallway, and a taxi delivered him to the baroque building on Boltzmanngasse, a building that housed both the American General Consulate and the Consular Academy for international students. He’d studied the architecture of this formidable building in school—it was built at the turn of the century in the classical style. Visitors usually waited inside the consulate, but a long line trickled out the front door this afternoon and wrapped around the white plaster wall. Across the street hung a banner at least five feet tall with a Nazi slogan embroidered in black on the cloth.
Might Comes Before Right!
As if those who were in power were always right. Or perhaps they meant power was more important than being right.
Dr. Weiss stood about two meters away from the steps of the consulate, his head bowed and formal coat buttoned as if it were December instead of July. Max had hoped that Luzi might have accompanied him, but most of the people waiting were middle-aged men, probably trying to obtain visas for their entire family.
Max stepped up beside Dr. Weiss.“Grüss Gott.”
Someone tapped him on the shoulder with a cane, the voice gravelly. “The queue begins around the corner.”
Max glanced back at an elderly man. “I’m not here for a visa.”
“You’ll have a riot on your hands if you walk through the door,” the man said.
Max inched forward beside Dr. Weiss. “I wanted to speak with you.”
Dr. Weiss pressed his hands into his pockets, resigned instead of welcoming the conversation. “Talk means nothing these days.”
“I’m your friend, Herr Doktor, even when others have turned away.”
“Jawohl, a friend is good, but I think you are only friends with me because of my daughter.”
“I want to help your entire family.” Max thought of the new Mercedes in the garage under his family’s home, waiting to be used, and he lowered his voice so the other men around them couldn’t hear. “I could drive you to Hungary in our automobile.”
Dr. Weiss shook his head. “There are checkpoints at every road along the border, and the guards require visas and baptismal certificates to prove that we’re Aryan.”
And hefty bribes as well, Max suspected.
Would the guards accept money in lieu of the certificates? There must be a way for them to leave Austria without the mounds of paperwork.
“You’ll get the visas,” Max insisted. “Today, perhaps.”
“I’ve filled out all the paperwork. Received all the stamps.”
Surely Luzi’s invitation to attend school in New York would convince the consul to let the Weiss family emigrate.
