“What do you mean, not like Frederick?” Katharina’s tone was challenging.
“With his engagement to that schoolmistress,” Jutta cried.
Katharina bounced the baby, looking annoyed. “Iris is a lovely person.”
“She signed the document that blocks my son from getting an education.”
“Where is Alois, by the way?” Florian asked.
“With David Roeschen. They took the goats up to the pastures this morning.” To Katharina, she continued, “That schoolteacher has blinded Frederick. That’s all part of their plan, Katharina. Marry our people and start reproducing Italians.” She looked at Annamarie. The girl was watching her. Jutta picked up her glass and drank.
Bernd began to cry, and Katharina stood up, her face stony. “Jutta, you really don’t see it, do you? There’s a better way. There is.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me again that we should all learn Italian.”
Katharina looked at Florian once more, but he was studying the ceiling. “We have to protect ourselves,” she said, “and in order to do so, we have to learn the language. We can’t ask or demand things if we can’t communicate and reason with them. It’s the only way any of us are going to keep our land.”
Jutta sat up straight. “My dear child. What has got into you? Your grandfather’s Opa fought with Andreas Hofer for our self-determination, Katharina. Take this law now, with having to tie up your dogs. Hund’s a cattle dog, for heaven’s sake. First they threaten to shoot our dogs, and then it will be us. Do you want to be like Hund, Katharina? Tied to the lead of the Walscher?”
She waited, but both Katharina and Florian were mute. “You two, of all people, owe that to Opa. You owe it to the Thaler heritage, to Tyrol, for heaven’s sake, to stand against the people who are taking away everything that makes us who we are.” She slapped a palm on the table, the sting satisfying. “You don’t reason with tyrants and the devil. You fight them.”
“All right.” Katharina’s voice was strained. “Then remain ignorant and let the authorities pull the land right out from under you. This inn”—she jabbed her finger on the tabletop—“that you fought so hard to own. For heaven’s sake, Jutta, if I even had a chance…”
“Katharina,” Florian warned.
“What? It doesn’t bother you that we don’t have a deed yet, because you have a house in Nuremberg. What about me? It was supposed to be my farm.”
Florian took in a deep breath, and Jutta looked from one to the next.
Katharina sat back down, staring at the table while Bernd bounced more furiously on her knee. When she looked at Jutta again, she was glaring. “And if you think the attorneys are going to help any of us, well, Frederick—the brother-in-law you feel you must renounce—is the one who warned us that our own people are pocketing bribes, then turning around and convincing their neighbours and supposed friends to sell out. If we don’t understand the contracts and allow the Italians to do what they want to us, we will have nothing left to defend and nobody to blame but ourselves. We won’t be able to blame Mussolini, not Rioba, and certainly not the Ministry of Civil Engineering when they decide it’s time to flood our neighbours’ fields.”
Jutta jerked back. “What did you write to Angelo Grimani? You know something, don’t you?”
Katharina shot out of her chair, and Bernd exploded into shrill cries. She grabbed her daughter’s hand. “I’m going to get those rolls for the children.” She threw Jutta a cold, hard look before dragging Annamarie towards the kitchen.
Jutta slumped into her chair. She wouldn’t be able to take back what she’d said. Not this time.
Florian’s question was on his face. “What has Katharina got to do with the Ministry of Civil Engineering? It keeps cropping up. Who’s Angelo Grimani?”
She was imagining what Katharina might have written, remembered that Katharina had gone to Iris with the letter, but not to her. “Johannes Thaler and the others were talking about writing to the ministry personally.”
“So what’s Katharina got do with it?”
She shrugged and glanced at the Stube door. “No idea. I assume she just knows about it.” She gasped then. “Wait a moment. There’s a soil testing team, arrived from Munich two days ago. Said the ministry ordered them together with a testing team from Bozen. If the German geologists can confirm the original tests, then certainly the ministry will foresee the problems with the soil.”
Florian pursed his lips. “I guess.”
If so, then maybe it was Katharina who was responsible. Maybe this Grimani was a valuable asset.
Jutta finished her wine and stood up to get the bottle from the bar. She returned to pour Florian a glass.
“I have another question,” he said as she poured.
She looked up.
“Who was the man Katharina was in love with? Before I came along? Was he from around here? Because she has nothing left to keep her here that I can think of, and yet she resists the idea of moving to Germany with all she can muster.”
Jutta steeled herself. She handed him the glass and sat down, her eyes steady on his. “She has the Thalerhof, Florian. And her kin buried here.”
“And Annamarie’s father. Who was he, Jutta?”
Her heart tripped in her chest. “I didn’t know him. He was just passing through, stole Katharina’s heart, and now he’s long gone.” She wasn’t lying.
“Was he an Italian? Admit it—if you look at Annamarie, she could be Italian.”
“Florian, let sleeping dogs lie. I mean it.”
“I would,” he muttered, “if it weren’t for the fact that people always meet twice.”
“That won’t happen, Florian.” God forbid. “He was nobody. Nothing to her.”
“And
