He’d never written her back. She’d often wondered whether he’d ever gotten the letter.
“The men from Munich were here, remember?” Iris said.
Then likely Angelo had indeed received her plea. “And the soil testing team from Bolzano,” Katharina thought out loud. She looked at her daughter, playing with Sebastiano near a mound of snow. “So it’s over.”
“I think so.” Iris smiled.
“I should tell the others about this.” Katharina looked over at the garden of the Post Inn. Jutta was standing at the back gate, her hands on her waist, watching them.
“There is your compagno, your ally,” Iris said. “We can go tell her now.”
Jutta jerked her chin in their direction, straightened, then slowly raised a hand in a kind of greeting.
Katharina lifted hers in return. She missed Jutta, but how could she bridge the distance now?
She turned back to Iris. “Maybe later.”
“She will never be happy to see me, eh? My future cognata, my sister-in-law.”
Katharina took Iris by the arm again and leaned into her. “Don’t you worry about that. Let’s walk to the lake. I’m here to talk about your wedding plans, not problems with in-laws.”
She took one last look at Angelo Grimani’s name and then at Annamarie, who—with Sebastiano—was throwing dirty clumps of snow into the melting puddles to make them splash.
***
N ext morning, the sky was a bright pink and vanilla when Katharina stepped outside. Bernd was still sleeping, and she placed his basket on the bench outside the door, under the eaves. Annamarie squatted on the ground, one of Katharina’s wooden clogs in her hand, petting the brown cowhide upper as if it were a pet. Katharina pried it away from her and slid into the shoes, Annamarie jumping up and following at her heels into the yard.
Patches of green grass were exposed between the melting snow in the fields, and the sky was still pink from the dawn. She led Annamarie to the chicken coop and had her scatter the food while she searched one out for soup. The black speckled one was a good pick. She cornered it against the fence and let it do its little jig: left, right, left, right, left, grab! She had her fingers deep in the feathers on its back and swung it into her arms. The chicken clucked nervously, and Katharina soothed and stroked it until it stopped its struggle.
In the yard, she picked up the axe to do away with the head, Hund already near the old tree stump that served as their chopping block. She wiped her brow and looked at the dog, then to where Annamarie was gathering eggs.
Four years ago. It was four years ago since she’d found Angelo’s blood trail, had followed it to Karl Spinner’s hut.
She lifted the axe over the chicken, surprised by the sudden loss of strength in her arms before bringing it down on the bird’s neck. Blood spurted and the body jerked, but she held it down tight.
What had she expected? To see Angelo when they started building the reservoir? And what if she did meet him again?
It had been Opa’s idea to rein Angelo in by using blackmail, and she had succumbed to him, written that letter. Mentioned that she had a daughter. It had possibly worked to put some sort of end to the reservoir, but hadn’t he figured out that he’d left her pregnant? That he had a child here?
Hund whined, eyeing the chicken head, and Katharina shoved her away with one foot. “Just wait a minute.”
She chopped off the feet and dropped them to the dog.
Whatever Angelo knew or did not know, she would never find out because now there was no reason for him to come back here, no reason for her to make his acquaintance again. No reason, then, to ever tell Annamarie about her father. She glanced at her daughter and began to tear out the hen’s feathers.
The sound of Florian’s footfalls on the gravel startled her, and she turned to watch him go to the fountain to shave. He tipped the mirror that he’d hung near the spout so that he could see himself, oblivious to where she stood.
He never asked. Not even when Jutta had mentioned Angelo’s name, Florian never asked anything about Annamarie’s father. Katharina was certain that he suspected something because he never asked. And he didn’t ask again when she brought the news about the dam. She’d gone straight home after her walk with Iris, told Hans about it in the cart on the way, and then he told Florian about the dam and about Hitler’s trial in Germany, and the two talked into the night as she put the children to bed.
When she’d come back down, Hans’s last words were, “Then there’s no need to be talking about me leasing the Thalerhof.”
She still did not have the courage to ask Florian whether he’d changed his mind about going to Germany. Since last autumn, they often got into heated discussions about it, stalking around one another like two fighting cats. Then there were the times when Annamarie and she were practising Italian words, and Florian would sometimes cast the girl a dark look, or there would be a disapproving glint in his eye.
Katharina told herself she was imagining these things, and as the silence between them increased, there were days she dreamt of telling her husband everything. While they lay on their sides in bed, she could tell him who Annamarie’s father was and why he was. She had formulated the possible words over and over, and each time she would build in how much she loved Florian.
That was where she always stopped, at the point where it sounded all contrived.
And when she imagined what Florian would say, she could picture that disapproving look turning into one of utter disappointment, even disgust. Worst of
