The waters of Hallstatt are an inky blue in this early morning hour, captured by a net of mist as Josh steers us toward the castle in an electric boat.
I was planning to visit a number of churches in Vienna, but I received an email from Sophie last night. She still hasn’t found anything about a Luzia Weiss in the archives, but she found several papers that mentioned a Luzi. I’ve arranged to meet with her this afternoon to review them.
“What’s it like to dive under the surface?” I ask, trailing my fingers through the icy wake.
“Have you heard of the German word Abstand?”
I lean back against the seat, searching my brain for the meaning. “It has something to do with travel.”
He nods. “It’s also used to explain the space between us and the world. A distance that a diver can find under the water.”
“You dive to escape?”
“Escape from the noise of our world while I’m searching for treasure.”
“My space is the wall of my room back in Ohio.”
“There’s a wall down here,” Josh says, pointing to an area not far from Annika’s former estate. “It’s ribbed with stone for about forty feet and then it drops out. I can take you sometime to see it.”
Curiosity wars again with my fears of the unknown. “I much prefer the world up here, even with the noise.”
“You won’t—not after you experience what’s underneath.”
It’s just the two of us out on the lake—Josh called one of his students who’d decided to stay a couple extra days near Hallstatt, and she agreed to hang out with Ella this morning while Josh took me to the train station. I suspect Ella might still be sleeping when he returns.
“Why haven’t you dived here before?” I ask.
A breeze sweeps across the lake, stirring the blue, and I zip up my jacket. At first I don’t think he’s heard my question, but then he responds.
“I’d planned to dive before Grace and I were married, but when she discovered that seven divers had drowned searching for treasure near here, she begged me not to come. She was afraid the water would take me from her.” The gentle buzz of the electric motor fills the space between us, his words settling over me. “Instead of my drowning, the cancer stole her from me.”
“She must have loved you deeply.”
He glances toward the castle. “And I loved her more than this dream of mine, but before she died, Grace said that she didn’t want me to live in fear like she had once done. I still battled with whether or not to come this time, for Ella’s sake. My chair at the university said it was time for me to stop researching ownerless treasure and start searching for it.”
“You would lose your job?”
“Possibly. If I didn’t bring a team here this summer and write about our findings, he was going to consider someone else for full professor and tenure. It wouldn’t be good for either Ella or me if I lost this position.”
I hear the doubt in his voice, the wanting to do the right thing but not being certain what was best for his daughter.
“You take good care of her, Josh.”
He looks away again, but if nothing else, I want him to know this. “Even the fact that you’re concerned is . . .” What is it? Admirable. Kind. Compassionate. Perhaps his care for her is simply what the word father is supposed to mean.
“I don’t want her to grow up afraid,” he says, “but now I’m the one scared for her.”
Fear—I pray it doesn’t plague Ella like it has me. Sometimes it seems like I am afraid of almost everything, including the man right in front of me. “She won’t be afraid, not with you there to tell her that she doesn’t have to worry. That she can leap over every roadblock in her path.”
“Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t.” Dr. Seuss was right on that account, but just this morning, I wish he would stop speaking to me.
I dip my hand back into the frigid water and fling the droplets away. “If for some reason she can’t leap over those roadblocks, you’ll tell her that you love her no matter what.”
“Did your father tell you that?” he asks.
I feel the ice creeping up inside me, no bucket challenge needed. I’ve talked too much, exposed the brokenness of my heart, the pieces that were supposed to be neatly swept under the shell.
“We’re almost there,” I say.
Even with the mist, I see the indisputable Kein Durchgang—No Entry—on the dock, but my gaze quickly wanders to the medieval Schloss behind it. Online pictures don’t do the castle justice, at least not with the mist circled around the turrets and hovering over the slate roof. Or perhaps it’s smoke. The smell from a woodstove wafts down the bank.
A stone retaining wall stretches in front of the main house and the five outbuildings on the estate, the rocks protecting the shoreline but also, I suspect, keeping away unwelcome visitors. Like us.
Undeterred, Josh motors toward the forest on the east side and pulls his boat up through the tall weeds, beaching it between the pine trees.
“Wegefreiheit,” he says as he eyes the wall of trees in front of us.
“What does that word mean?”
“An Austrian’s universal freedom to roam around.”
That thought makes me smile. “I suspect that doesn’t apply to private property.”
“No. Locals are rather strict about keeping tourists off their land.”
I wrap my arms across my chest. “Then why are we here?”
“Because it’s the only way to find information about Annika. Now that my dive is done—”
“We’re still trespassing.”
“We’ll simply knock,” he says. “Herr Stadler will either invite us into his home or he’ll ask us to leave. We won’t stick around if we’re not welcome.”
My desire for information wins out over my reluctance. Together we cross through the forest, past the remains of a small house, the wood and stone blackened, the roof caved in. Then the forest breaks into field, and before us are several gardens, ablaze with flowers.
Someone cares well for this land.
A barn stands close to the water, a small fortress made of stucco and stone. Inside the doorway is a middle-aged man dressed in brown trousers and a white T-shirt, his graying hair tucked partly under a cap, a milk pail in hand. He doesn’t appear to be very pleased about having guests.
“This property is private,” he says in German.
“Ja,” Josh replies. “We are looking for someone who once lived here. Do you speak English?”
Irritation flares on the man’s face. “This is my home. Not an attraction.”
“My name is Josh,” he says. “My uncle stayed here in 1945, right after the war ended.”
“An Allied soldier, I presume?” the man asks with a mixture of German and English.
Josh nods.
“Most people here want to forget about the war.”
“In the United States, we want to remember. So it never happens again.”
“With the remembering, the stories can get twisted, ja?”
The man is looking at me now so I answer. “It is our job to unwind them. So we remember the truth.”
“Even when we do remember, we can’t seem to stop men in our world from killing each other,” the man says, and his English—at least when he is angry—is quite good. He’s at least three decades too young to have fought in World War II, but I wonder if he’s fought in another war. “Why are you in Austria?”
Josh introduces us properly, shaking his hand as if we are meeting at a dinner party. “I brought some students to dive the lake with me.”
“Treasure hunting?” the man asks as if it’s an accusation.
“I’m looking for what the Nazis would have called ownerless treasure.”
“There’s nothing left to be found in this lake.”
Josh isn’t ready to be dismissed, especially after he already found a list of names and the silver coins. “My uncle met a woman while he was here who told him about things that were hidden.”
The man is paying closer attention now. “What was her name?”
“Annika Stadler.”
The man swings his pail into his other hand. “Frau Stadler doesn’t live here anymore.”
My pulse speeds up. “But you know her?”
“Ja, but the memories here, they are hard.”
A glance over at Josh and I see the interest pique on his face too. I don’t think either of us truly thought Annika would still be alive.
“Callie has found a book of Annika’s from her childhood. We thought Frau Stadler might want it returned.”
“What book is that?” the man asks.
Josh glances at me.
“An early edition of Bambi,” I say, carefully guarding my words. “It contains some sort of list.”
“I will ask her about it. Where are you staying?”
“At Gasthof Simony,” Josh says.
“I am Jonas Stadler.”
“Is Frau Stadler your grandmother?” I ask.
The man gazes out at the lake, toward the village of Hallstatt. “Do either of you have children?”
Josh slips his phone out of his jacket pocket, and I glimpse a recent picture of Ella holding her stuffed bunny, sitting in front of a bowl of Cheerios and glass of orange juice. He turns it to show Herr Stadler. “This is my daughter.”
“She looks like she is full of life.”
“In abundance.”
“And you would do anything for your daughter, would you not?” Herr Stadler asks.
“I’d give my life for her.”
“I would give my life for my family as well.” The man steps away. “I will contact you at Gasthof Simony if Frau Stadler would like to speak with you.”
Josh nods. “Fair enough.”
“Auf Wiedersehen,” Herr Stadler says, tipping his cap.
We wander back to the boat, the smell of wood smoke wafting through the trees.
Frau Stadler would be well into her ninth decade of life by now. If she’s willing to speak with us, will she remember what was lost? And where it went? Will she remember the man whose photo she taped in her book or the woman who’d been cut away?
The clock, I fear, is working against us all.