Copyright © 2018 by Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.
Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger / Inktreks
Dornbirn, Austria
www.inktreks.com
For historical notes, background information, a list of characters in the series, a glossary and more information, visit www.inktreks.com/blog.
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Cover, illustrations, and photos by Ursula Hechenberger (ursulahechenberger.com) © 2018
Cover model: Kathrin Meier, Marie Meier
The Breach, a Reschen Valley Novel (2)/ Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger. – 1st ed.
ISBN-13: 978-1985723412
ISBN-10: 1985723417
ASIN: B0795RGKFW
Welcome (back!) to the Reschen Valley series. I am thrilled that you have chosen this book.
Pssst… if you haven’t read the first instalment, you may want to. Though future instalments will be stand-alone, No Man’s Land (part 1) and The Breach (part 2) were meant to be one big book. Because of its final size, we made it into two separate titles. Here’s the book info for No Man’s Land for your reading pleasure.
TO MY DADDY—
You know why. I miss you.
1922–1924
Why should we care for 180,000 Germans under Italian domination? If, as a National Socialist, I put myself in the position of Italy, I have to agree fully with that country’s claim to a strategic border.
—Adolf Hitler, quoted in the Corriere Italiano, October 1922
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Bonus material at the end!
Chapter 1
Arlund, November 1922
A t the cemetery on St. Anna’s hill, Katharina stood with Annamarie’s hand in hers. She pointed out her two great-uncles and Annamarie’s great-grandmother.
At the engraved photo of her parents, Katharina said, “Annamarie, that was your Opa, Josef Thaler. And this was your Oma, Marianna Thaler. They were my mother and father, just like I am your mama and Papa is—”
Katharina could try all she wanted, but Annamarie was Angelo Grimani’s. Her daughter had his long fingers, his eyes, his slight dimple on her chin, and even a shade of his Italian colouring. Everyone in the valley said that Annamarie looked like Katharina. Even Jutta and Florian, the only two who knew Annamarie was Angelo’s, said with careful diplomacy that Annamarie would be tall like her mama, and a beauty like her too.
Maybe. But Katharina saw her daughter’s other half just as prominently.
Annamarie slipped to the ground and grabbed at the black-eyed Susans on the graves, and Katharina bent to rescue the flowers, but a sharp pain in her back halted her, and Annamarie had the first daisy’s head off in no time. Katharina stretched, one hand on her rounded belly: her next child, Florian’s. Before her daughter could get hold of another flower, Katharina scooped her up and winced at the strain of it. Annamarie was what weighed on her most. It would be the father’s side of the child’s story Katharina would never be able to properly share.
She remembered how, when Florian received news of his mother’s death the month before, he’d slowly folded the telegram and said, “I’m sorry my mother never got to meet her granddaughter.” His voice had faltered at the end, and he looked at Katharina’s belly. “Or maybe it will be a boy.”
When she had Annamarie wrapped and tied to her back again, Katharina called for the dog. Hund loped up the path back to Arlund, turning sideways to stop and check on their progress. Before entering the woods, Katharina looked down into the valley at the skeletons of new barracks between Reschen and Graun. The area for the Italian officials was growing, the buildings becoming sturdier, more permanent. In the last two years, the wives and children of the border guards and police had joined their husbands. There was a new schoolteacher from farther down in Italy. And Captain Rioba was now prefect, which meant Georg Roeschen was no longer mayor of Graun. Jutta had complained, with a sour face, about how the landscape was changing, and Kaspar Ritsch had said that if the Italians were building so much, then chances were that the Etsch River wouldn’t be diverted to where the Walscher—the Italians—were living.
“Then we should all relocate to the Italian quarter,” Opa had retorted.
Katharina reached the wayward cross and put a few daisies into the vase at Christ’s feet. Above them, she heard the cry of a goshawk. It grasped something in its claws, but she could not make out what. It was a fine day for the first of November, warm and sunny, and the mountain peaks were not even covered in snow yet. She crossed the bridge at the Karlinbach and came to the clearing leading to Arlund. In the distance, smoke curled from the chimney of the Thalerhof. She smiled at the thought of surprising Florian with the hare she’d caught in one of their traps. She would bake it in the Roman clay pot with cabbage and a thick sauce, the way he liked it.
At the sound of running water in the Hof, Hund dashed for the fountain set just before the house on the garden side. That summer, Florian and Opa had carved out a fresh log, hollowing it out first, then tapping into the spring below with a wooden spigot where the water ran through the small plug at the bottom of the log, nonstop. When it was very hot, the dog would jump in and crouch to her midriff, lapping up
