CHAPTER 10

ANNIKA

LAKE HALLSTATT, AUSTRIA

JUNE 1938

Annika had learned how to read in Volksschule, in the years before Vati decided that she needed to stay home and work with him. Instead of schoolbooks, she now read every word of the newspapers her father brought home to feed the fire in their kitchen stove.

These days Annika almost wished she didn’t know how to turn letters into words or words into the haunting stories that the Vienna newspaper was celebrating these days—the arrival of Hitler into the country that he’d renamed Ostmark, the plunder of shops in Judenstrasse, the mass burning of Jewish and Marxist books in Salzburg, the arrest of Jewish people attempting to leave Vienna, and the expulsion of renowned Jews like Bruno Walter from their positions.

How could the people of Vienna celebrate when some of their innocent neighbors were being arrested and others were being denied the privileges to shop, read, and work?

Annika sipped her coffee, creamy with goat milk, and turned the page as the clock ticked to half past eight. She had more time these days—the only animals on the estate now were chickens and the two goats who feasted on the lawn and rewarded the Knopfs with milk, and Vati had locked the castle after he found her looking through the shoe boxes. The next day he’d monitored while she finished cleaning the rooms, and then hid both the key and the star necklace, probably in his pocket because she’d searched the house while he was gone at night and couldn’t find it.

Perhaps he’d already lost or sold the necklace in a drunken state. Then the Dornbachs would have nothing to fear.

Soon she would begin frying ham for Vati’s breakfast. He was still asleep after another night at the beer hall. He spent most of his evenings there now, probably to avoid being with her or alone with his memories.

The older she grew, the more she reminded him of his deceased wife. Or so she’d heard him say to Hermann when they were working on the chapel.

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 by train 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 meteor shower 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 of Bambi: 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.

Bambi was 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 friends in 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 her back.

“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.

Annika shook her head. “He’s not coming today.”

“I—I have something for him.”

Annika reached out. “I can give it to him tomorrow.”

Sarah clutched the straps of the knapsack closer to her chest. “I’ll find him later.”

Annika sat on one of the wooden stools outside the barn. The sun had tipped over the Alps on the other side of the lake, chasing the morning fog away. “Everything is quiet here,” she said. “Too quiet. Even the Dornbachs haven’t returned.”

“Perhaps they will stay in Vienna this year.”

She couldn’t imagine it, an entire summer without Max. Nor could she let her mind wander to what he might be doing in the city with Fräulein Weiss or another young woman.

The days and hours seemed to spin around her, spiraling out of control. So much kept changing—the rhythm of her life, the people she loved, the news that streamed out of Vienna. If only she could press the cone of the spinning top until it tumbled over, giving her a chance to breathe before the world shifted again.

Sarah sat on a second stool, glancing at the cottage before leaning toward Annika. “Is your father still asleep?”

“He went into Obertraun today.”

“People say he’s working with the Nazis.”

Annika shook her head. “There aren’t any Nazis in Obertraun.”

“Nazis are everywhere.”

A layer of ice seemed to creep across Annika’s arms, and she rubbed her hands over them. “Just for today, let’s pretend there are none in Austria.”

Her friend glanced out at the lake. “Then we must take a swim.”

Sarah pulled her bathing suit out of her bag and the two of them changed in the cottage before diving into the lake together, shrieking when the cold water swept over the heat of their skin.

They raced out to the depths but didn’t swim far before they returned to play near the shore as if they were ten again, splashing each other, diving under the surface to see who could stay submerged the longest, their lungs begging for a breath.

When the sun began lowering toward the western edge of the lake, Annika followed Sarah back onto the shore, the weeds and mud in the shallows oozing between her toes. “Must you go?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

Annika sighed, wishing this day never had to end.

They changed in the boathouse, Sarah transforming back into the young woman she was expected to be, her knapsack strapped over her shoulder, but she didn’t seem to want to leave either. Together they sat at the edge of the dock for a few more stolen minutes, their feet dangling in the cold water.

Annika pointed toward Sarah’s throat. “You forgot to put on your necklace.”

Her friend shook her head. “My mother won’t let me wear it anymore.”

She almost told Sarah that she’d found a similar necklace in Frau Dornbach’s room, one encrusted with diamonds, but it seemed the star was something to hide these days. “You used to be so proud of that necklace.”

“It stirs up unnecessary trouble now.”

“Your mother’s words?”

Sarah nodded.

“She takes good care of you and your brother.”

“Your mother used to take such good care of you, too.” Both of them looked across the lake to the outline of the cemetery on the other side. “Do you still miss her?”

“I’ll always miss her,” Annika said. “Will you come swim again soon?”

Sarah lowered her bag into her lap. “Things are about to change for our family.”

Annika shivered. She didn’t know if she could bear another change.

“My father lost his position in the mine,” Sarah said, “and now all the Austrian Jews are being summoned to Vienna.”

“Will you go?”

Sarah shook her head. “We’re moving to Bolivia to live with our cousin. He’s already found Father a job.”

Tears sprang from a well deep inside Annika, spilling over onto her cheeks.

“It’s warm enough to swim all year in South America,” Sarah said, talking faster as if to convince herself along with Annika. “And we won’t have to worry—”

“I don’t know what I’ll do without you.”

“I’ll write,” Sarah promised.

“And I shall write you.”

Sarah hugged her. “Friends for life.”

“Geh mit Gott,” Annika said, trying to be strong.

Go with the blessing of God.

But even as she said the words, her heart was bleeding. No matter how many extra schillings she saved from their grocery money, hiding them from Vati in her metal box, she’d never have enough for passage to South America.

Sarah slipped into her canoe, and sadness washed over Annika as her friend paddled away.

Perhaps it was time for her to say a final good-bye to that wide-eyed girl who wanted to play. Perhaps it was time for her to grow up as well.