Rioba cocked his head. “I’ll be happy to take over for you, if you like.”
Angelo looked again to where Marco had disappeared. He had to take quick action. “I’m certain Stefano will appreciate what you can offer. He’s a very capable man.”
Rioba touched his fez. “As you wish.”
Angelo sighed. It wasn’t what he wished. He would have to count on Stefano. Indeed he counted himself lucky to have a man he could trust—a man who at least had a clean slate with the locals.
***
K atharina was near the bedroom window, just finishing the floors, when she saw movement in the lit barnyard below. Annamarie was at the well. She splashed water on her face. Katharina pressed a palm to the window, covering her firstborn for a brief moment. There was a yearning and loneliness in that child, things Katharina herself had passed on to her, like the Karlinbach spilling its winter debris into the lake. Annamarie was not Angelo, but if that thought had been meant to make her feel better, it did not.
Bernd came out of the barn, a shovel in his hand. She could not hear the words her children exchanged but could imagine—by the way Bernd thrust the shovel about—he was scolding his older sister for having to do her chores again. Annamarie’s posture was one of sheer ambivalence. When Manuel came out too, he called over his shoulder, presumably to Florian. Annamarie shrugged and hurried into the house.
The wooden stairs creaked, and Katharina called to her daughter before she could move past the door. Her daughter’s defiance was not great enough to cover the signs of crying.
“I don’t suppose,” Katharina said, “you’ve got a better answer for me now than you did the last time. Where have you been? You’ve been gone all day. All day, Annamarie!”
The girl hung her head, and it was then that Katharina saw the state her daughter was really in. She looked a mess. She wore her Sunday dress, and it was quite rumpled. Her dark hair was unbraided—a tangle of knots and waves—but it was her child’s despair that caused Katharina the most concern.
“Come to me,” she beckoned. “What’s happened?”
Annamarie’s bottom lip trembled. “I was at the Planggers’ tree with some of my classmates. Nothing happened.”
“You were climbing the tree in your Sunday’s best?” She breathed deeply. “Annamarie, your father will take the switch to you for defying us once more. Why do you force his hand like this?”
Annamarie shrugged.
Katharina went to her and gently steered her to the foot of the bed. The children’s clothes she had removed from the pine chest still lay in small stacks on the mattress. She moved them away before sitting, drawing Annamarie to her.
“What is all this?” Her daughter indicated the piles of clothing.
Katharina took a stack of baby things into her lap. She held up a small dress.
“Look how little I once was.” Annamarie sat down next to her.
“Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
Her daughter pointed at the neatly folded regiment trousers. “Why do you have all these things out? Are these Papa’s?”
“Your grandfather’s. I used to wear them. They made me feel—I don’t know—more ready to take on the harder things in life, I guess.” Katharina chuckled at Annamarie’s frown. “They don’t fit anymore. Like many things these days. I guess we grow out of a lot more than just clothes. And still we’re none the wiser.”
“What is it, Mother?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.” She wanted the truth from Annamarie, about where she’d been, but how could she demand anything from her daughter if she was holding back herself?
The door slammed downstairs. Florian was coming, and Katharina was not sure she could protect her daughter from him. He had never been pushed this far, and it was not entirely Annamarie’s fault.
“You had better tell me now where you were if you want to save yourself from the switch.”
Annamarie looked hard at her and opened her mouth as Florian’s footfalls stopped outside the bedroom door.
“Annamarie,” she kept her voice low. “Do you know what it means to undo your braids for a boy?”
“You would never understand. All anyone wants for me is to marry who they think is right for me—”
“That’s not true. Not at all. And I would understand.”
Her daughter looked uncertain. Frightened even. “It doesn’t matter. He’s gone.”
Katharina’s heart stopped beating, and when it started up again, it leapt against her chest.
Annamarie went to the door and opened it. Florian stood outside. “Father? You want to see me?” The door shut behind her.
Katharina remained on the bed for a moment before going to the window. Florian was marching Annamarie into the barn. Gone. They were gone. That day’s mistakes had pressed heavily on her. She’d tried to tell Angelo the truth, but whom she owed it to was Annamarie. But if they were gone, she still had time.
Chapter 8
Bolzano, June 1937
W ater. Rising. Sucking sounds. Snapping. Popping, groaning wood. Graun Lake. Reschen Lake. A crack in the earth, the homes and fields swallowed. A tree sinking beneath the water. Someone was missing. Someone was missing. A crow cawed. Others responded. Wings alighted around him.
He was too late!
Angelo awoke in a sweat and threw the sheet and the brocade coverlet off, and with that gesture, the smoky images from his nightmare, that same nightmare that had been plaguing him year after year, dissipated.
The air was thick even in the early morning. It would be a scorching day. He rose from the bed and yanked the curtains to the balcony open. The scar on his head tingled, like a limb gone asleep, and he rubbed his scalp vigorously. Sometimes, it was like having ants crawling
