“Perhaps one day you will salute for the sake of Fräulein Weiss,” Ernst said, sounding as if the thought gave him great pleasure.
Max wished he could slug Ernst right here, as he’d often wished when they were younger. Though he was vocal about his distaste of anyone with Jewish blood, Ernst was obsessed with Luzi. Max had seen him watching her at the Dornbach parties, when Ernst was supposed to be helping Frau Schmid serve the food, but it wasn’t admiration in his eyes. He looked more like a bird of prey ready to attack.
Ernst would probably be first in line to become a member ofthe notoriousSchutzstaffel. Germany’s bullies. Hopefully Hitler would send him far away to train for the SS.
“Yes, Max.” Ernst clipped his shoulder. “You will salute, for the Fräulein if nothing else.”
“I’ll never salute,” he said.
A footbridge crossed the Wien near Hietzing, and Max followed the street over the river, into this southern district of Vienna. Luzi and her family lived in a coral-painted villa; Luzi’s father practiced medicine on the ground level, and their family lived in the flat above.
Music spilling from Luzi’s violin streamed out their window, pooling over the street and the park behind their home, beckoning him forward. He could imagine the gentle sway of her body as she bore the weight of her music, cradling her violin. Then the passion in her face, her lips pursed in concentration when she brushed the strings with her bow made from Pernambuco, wood taken from the heart of the tree.
Luzi didn’t just play music. Shewasmusic, embodying a song from her chin down to the black heels she wore for every performance. The same heels her mother once wore when she performed.
Before he saw Luzi, he must speak to her father.
The door to Dr. Weiss’s office was unlocked, and when Max stepped inside, the violin music drifted down from the back staircase, into the office. Dr. Weiss looked up from the shelf he was rearranging by his desk. He was about forty years old, a few years younger than Max’s parents, but his dark hair had begun to thin. In a frame above the desk, the only decor in the room, was his medical diploma from the University of Vienna.
Max had rarely been here when there weren’t patients crowding the front, but with the parade today, he suspected that most men and women were either waiting for Hitler’s arrival or hiding out in their homes.
“Thank you for coming,” Dr. Weiss said.
Max leaned back against a post. “I hid the things you gave me. They are—”
The doctor waved his hands. “Don’t tell me.”
“Safe, Herr Doktor. That’s all I was going to say.”
“Where are your parents?” Dr. Weiss asked.
“Mother stayed behind at the lake, and I suspect my father has forgotten all about me by now.”
“One of my patients—the Nazis tore apart his house, looking for his family’s jewelry.”
“It is safe,” Max assured him.
“Already I have more things.” Dr. Weiss opened his medicine cabinet and took out dozens of glass bottles. “They arrived yesterday.”
Max held up his rucksack. “Will they fit in here?”
“I believe so.”
The doctor glanced toward the window at the front of his office before removing a burlap bag from its hiding place behind the jars. He slid it underneath the remaining food and a schoolbook that Max brought with him in case anyone asked why he needed the rucksack.
“Did your family attend the parade?” Max asked.
“Frau Weiss would never celebrate the arrival of thatschlimmman.” He’d never heard Dr. Weiss call Hitler by any name other than evil. “I was required to go, but I didn’t stay long.” He pounded his chest. “In here I’m not celebrating.”
“Nor am I.” Max looked at the ceiling. After a short pause, the music started again. “Will Frau Weiss let me see her?”
A smile slipped across Dr. Weiss’s face. “If you inquire nicely, Max. Like a house cat instead of a lion.”
Nothing seemed to irritate Frau Weiss more than someone, particularly Max, stepping between Luzi and her violin. “You won’t ask for me?”
“Miriam will do as she sees fit.”
He hadn’t spoken to Frau Weiss about his intentions, but Dr. Weiss knew. One day soon, if Luzi would have him, he planned to marry her.
