He cupped a fist to his mouth and coughed again. She touched his arm.
“Next time,” she said, “you send Florian or me into town for your papers and post. With winter coming, you need to get that cough under control.”
Opa patted Annamarie’s head as she played amongst the scattered pots and pans. Katharina watched him wander into the sitting room, organise the stacks of newspapers, clamp his empty pipe between his teeth, and unfold his first paper, the back page for the farmers’ news first.
She poured the cake into the tin, popped it into the oven, and discreetly unwrapped her package.
It was her Italian primer. She leafed through the pages, holding the book close to her middle, and mouthed the conjugations for the verbs read and write.
She heard Toni say he had to leave, but when Florian came up behind her, Katharina nearly jumped out of her skin.
He reached for the book. “What’s this?”
“Don’t tell Opa,” she whispered. “He won’t have it.” She showed him the primer.
Her husband looked unconvinced. “You had better put it where he won’t find it.”
Toni was at the door when Opa slammed his newspaper into his lap, face flushed.
“Look at this.” He jabbed at the front page with his pipe. “The Fascists are positioned in the Po plains.”
“When did this happen?” Toni strode over to Opa and stood over his shoulder.
Opa looked at the top of the newspaper. “October twenty-fourth.”
Florian asked for the paper and read aloud. “At a Fascist Congress in Naples, Mussolini was quoted as saying, ‘Our program is simple: we want to rule Italy.’”
“And this one,” Opa complained, raising another issue, also on the front page. “The twenty-ninth.”
Florian scanned the article, and Katharina placed the Italian primer on the corner of the counter, intending to go to him, but he lowered the paper before she reached him.
“Forget about the Po for a moment,” her husband said to Opa and Toni. “There are twenty thousand Blackshirts marching in Rome right now. The prime minister ordered a state of siege, but the king’s refused to sign a military order.”
“What does that mean?” Katharina asked.
Her husband faced Opa, as if he’d asked the question. “It means the king will give Mussolini whatever he wants.”
Toni came around from Opa’s chair and put his hands on his waist, his anger taking up the middle of the room. “To hell if I’m going to be called Antonio from now on. Should’ve stayed up on the alp, that’s what. Crossed the border as soon as I could have.”
“Good thing I’m still a German citizen,” Florian scoffed.
Opa looked bewildered. “What good is that to you now? You going to pick up this house, the barn, and all the cattle and move them across the border, or what?”
Katharina groaned softly. Don’t give him any ideas. Her husband had not been able to hide his growing admiration for the nationalists in Germany.
“If the Fascists take over Italy,” Toni said, “the first thing they’ll do is make that Ettore Tolomei head of something and make sure all of our rights are signed out of law.”
“I won’t have it,” Opa yelled. “I won’t have Tyrol taken over by thugs.”
Florian turned to Toni. “What do we do then?”
“Fight.” Toni wagged his hat at Opa. “Johannes, it’s time we start that resistance.”
Opa stood up. “I’ll back you and anyone else who wants to take a stand.”
Florian bit his bottom lip, a gesture Katharina recognised as her own when in duress.
“I’ll talk to the boys.” Toni nodded. “We’ll get ourselves organised. Florian?”
Katharina turned away, closing her ears to the nonsense. There would be no resistance. Father Wilhelm or Jutta would talk them all out of it. Against the two of them, the “boys,” as Toni had called them—she cringed when Opa coughed again—would get a scolding, that was all.
She picked up the cake bowl to wash it out and inadvertently knocked the primer she’d lain on the table. It fell to the ground, and before she could bend over to pick it up, Toni had already scooped it up and held it out to her, until his gaze fell on the cover. When he pulled the primer away from her reach, she noted the grim look on his face. Her blood froze, and as he leaned in, he was so close she could smell the wine on his breath.
“You remember whose land you’re on?” he whispered.
Katharina’s heart banged against her ribs. She recalled how he’d pinned Patricia to the ground. She stared at the book in his hand, and she could feel his breath on her neck.
“Hmmm? That you’re not one of us has always been clear with your mother’s mixed blood. Something Slavic, wasn’t she? Polish? They ain’t got a lick of loyalty to them. Shows in how they govern their country, foreign kings and all.”
“I’m as Tyrolean as any of you,” Katharina choked out.
“Yeah?” He tipped his head towards the book in his hand and pressed the upper corner into her waist. “Seems you’ve forgotten. Married an outsider. None of us were any good for ya?” He sniffed, checked over his shoulder.
Behind him, Opa and Florian were still arguing about what form a resistance could take.
Toni finally moved away from her, but he wasn’t finished. He pretended to examine the empty cake bowl, and spoke softly.
“Shame on you, Katharina. Feel sorry for your Opa here. Only people he’s got left is a strange tall girl and a German. Both half-Tyroleans and ain’t got no respect for tradition and what this country’s gone through to get the freedom it once had.”
“I didn’t forget any of that.” Katharina found courage in her growing outrage.
He smirked and rubbed along the edge of the bowl, her sweet cake batter gathering on the rim of his index
