She sighed. “Filipa went through a lot that day. And Marco? How is he?”
“A month after our last fight about Spain, two of his comrades from the Avanguardisti left to fight. They returned in caskets. I’m to blame for that as well apparently. He told his mother that if I had let him go, he might have been able to save them. I can’t win. As a matter of fact, he seems to believe he is the only one who has a right to win anything right now.”
Gina nodded. “The product of an overactive imagination, I’d say. But you said the Colonel convinced him against going as well. Does Marco hold a grudge against his grandfather?”
Angelo shook his head. “The only reason the Colonel did not want him to leave for Spain is because he believes Marco will be needed to fight for Italy soon enough.”
“Most likely that is correct.”
The quiet that followed was not awkward, though it might have been—by all right should have been—and Angelo relaxed. The comfort. The crackling fire. The ruby-coloured flowers, and the crumbs of lemon cake.
“I never even asked you,” she said, wiping her mouth. “Where are you living now?”
“At the Laurin.”
“Not tonight.”
Gina rose from her seat and reached for him. It was like someone offering him a hand to make the last climb to a summit.
He took it, turned it in his own, ran two fingers over her palm. When he looked up at her, he was humbled. Before him stood a woman whom he did not know, a woman who was inviting him to know her.
Chapter 19
Arlund, March 1938
T he smell of linseed oil always gave Katharina a sense of comfort. She rubbed the pews with a soft cloth and admired Iris’s arrangement on the altar. Katharina had nurtured the bulbs of crocus and hyacinth on the southern sill of her kitchen windows, then wrapped them in bark and twine.
“Jutta will like those,” she said.
Iris tossed a look over her shoulder. “As long as Jutta is happy.”
Katharina laughed.
The side door opened, and Father Wilhelm walked in, an armful of Sunday missals pressed against his chest.
“Good day, Father.”
“Good morning, Katharina. The arrangement is very nice.” He placed the books on the end of the pew in front of Katharina and leaned over the back of it. “I’ve just been listening to the radio about Hitler’s meeting in Rome. Jutta predicted it. Nothing will change for us here in Tyrol.”
“What do you mean?”
“An alliance with Mussolini is what he’s after. And Austria is too weak to do anything to help us.”
So Hitler wasn’t going to stitch Tyrol back together with his realm. Maybe all this nonsense with Bernd’s fervour for all things related to the Third Reich would finally dissipate.
Iris carried a bundle of cut stems and leaves in her arms and stopped next to them. “I’m finished. I’ve arranged for some fresh daffodils for Easter, Father. They still need some time.”
He switched to Italian. “Very kind of you, Iris. It will be a nice change to that snow out there. There’s nothing like fresh flowers to put a little bounce into our step.”
Katharina pointed to the pew she was working on. “This is the last one. Then I’ve got to get back to the Hof.”
Iris said goodbye. At the door, Katharina saw her reel backwards as Jutta rushed in, so harried that she actually greeted Iris, the first words Katharina had ever heard Jutta say to her sister-in-law.
“You have to hurry,” Jutta gasped when she reached Katharina. Her face was glistening, dark wisps making a halo around her forehead. “It’s Annamarie. She’s just arrived in Sebastiano Foglio’s motorcar—”
“Annamarie!”
Jutta gulped and stilled her breath. “I saw her at the crossroads. She got out and went straight up the road to Arlund. I caught up to Sebastiano, and he told me he had picked her up in Mals. He was hurrying back before that next storm blows in, and there she was, just standing on the side of the road. Just like that!”
But Katharina was imagining her daughter walking up to the farm and coming home. She dropped the polishing rag and ran out of the church.
The snow made the going tedious, too slow. She grew frustrated with how much slower and heavier her body had become, how the bottoms of her shoes skidded on the icy path. By the time she reached the Hof, her clothes were damp with sweat. The dog was barking, entangled in his chain. Impatiently, she unwound him, then patted her headscarf into place before going into the house, heart hammering. To the north, ominous black clouds were piling up. More snow.
At the door was Florian’s old suitcase, the one that had gone missing together with Annamarie. It was more battered than ever, and the bottom was caked in splotches of winter melt and mud. Annamarie’s shoes were lying sideways next to one another as if collapsed from a long trip, scuffed up and patched with watermarks—from the snow, no doubt. Katharina walked in to find her daughter sitting at the table with Florian. His expression was a mixture of relief and anxiety.
“Annamarie,” Katharina whispered. “Sweet child!”
“Mother.” Her daughter rose.
She looked tired, and Katharina searched her face, as if it would reveal everything that had happened these many months. Katharina pulled her into her arms. At first, Annamarie stood stiffly, so Katharina hugged her harder.
“You’re home. You’re safe now.” Yet something within her remained unconvinced. She held Annamarie before her. “How are you? Where have you been?”
“I found work in Brissano.”
In Brixen. Brissano. So that was where she’d gone. “What kind of work?”
Her daughter was breaking. Broken. “Well, there aren’t many theatre companies there. I cleaned the
