“I have a pot brewing right now,” the woman said before retreating into the kitchen.
His father didn’t seem to notice their housekeeper’s departure. “You—” He wrapped his hand around the telegram before balling it up. “You gave money to Kurt Schuschnigg!”
Each syllable pounded out of his mouth, a hammer flattening a nail. Then nothing. The clock ticking behind them divided the breadth of silence into sections. One. Two. Three. Max counted the seconds in his head, twenty of them before his mother spoke again.
Unlike his father’s splotched face, hers had blanched white.
“Why wouldn’t I donate money to Chancellor Schuschnigg?” she asked, the tremble in her voice negating any attempt to dispute the accusation.
“Ex-chancellor,” his father fumed. “Don’t be coy with me, Klara. They are questioning our loyalty.”
Max slumped farther into his chair. The darts flew back and forth across their dinner table more frequently these days, especially when they discussed their former chancellor and others who dared to stand up against the regime.
“We have been nothing but loyal,” his mother said.
“To Hitler,” his father insisted. “Not the old Austria.”
“Change is a process,” she said. “And you thought Schuschnigg was a good chancellor.”
“But I wouldn’t donate money to him, right before the plebiscite. Only Jews donated—”
“My donation was private information.”
“Nothing is private anymore.”
“It was when I donated it.” His mother’s voice sounded hollow, like she’d lost the strength of it. “They’re like parasites.”
His father stood and shoved his chair back underneath the table. “They’re requiring my presence at the Hotel Metropole, first thing in the morning.”
The new Gestapo headquarters.
“I’ll explain—”
“No.” He drummed the table, as if he were trying to pound out a solution. Then he gave a sharp nod. “You and Max were already planning to leave for Schloss Schwansee. I don’t want to detain you.”
“Of course,” his mother said, smoothing her hands across the tablecloth. “We always visit Schloss Schwansee in the summer.”
His father stepped toward the corridor, probably to lock himself in his study for the evening.
She called out to him. “What will you say to the Gestapo?”
He turned back, his eyes still hard. “That my wife made a foolish error. She knows nothing of politics.”
Max leaned back as the housekeeper filled his coffee cup. He’d never heard anyone accuse his mother of being a fool.
The telephone rang.
“Don’t answer that,” his father commanded, and they waited until the ringing ceased. Then he glanced back toward the salon. “You will leave for Hallstatt tonight instead.”
“I’ve done nothing wrong, Wilhelm.”
“Innocence is secondary in this Reich.”
The telephone began ringing again.
His mother stood. “We’ll leave within the hour.”
“Annika,” Max whispered as he rapped on the glass, praying he wouldn’t wake up Herr Knopf. Not only was her father a drunkard, Max doubted he could keep a secret. And he suspected that the man would do whatever benefited him the most.
