By the time he reached the Katharinahof, the anxiety of meeting Annamarie and Katharina had been replaced by exhaustion, and he was prepared.
He knocked on the door just as a cow moaned from the barn, and someone swished hay somewhere within. A dog barked, but Angelo must have appeared to be no threat, because it wagged its tail shortly after and whined, his line too short to reach Angelo. At every farm he’d passed, the dogs were all on chains.
They must be in the barn. He needed a breather. He sank onto the bench outside the door, the sun warming him and blinding him at the same time. Eyes closed, he must have drifted away, because the next thing Angelo heard were quick footsteps, and he startled awake.
“I don’t know who you are,” a woman’s voice said in Italian, “but you can just move along now.”
Angelo shaded his eyes and turned to the voice. There was a rifle pointed at his head.
“Katharina? Frau Steinhauser? It’s me. Angelo.” He lifted the goggles and lowered the scarf.
Katharina stepped around the bench, her eyes wide. She glanced uneasily towards the barn, then back at him.
Angelo scrambled to his feet. “I mean no trouble. Please. I just… Darf ich? Bitte?”
“May you what?” she asked coldly.
She was going to make him say it.
“She’s not here,” Katharina suddenly said. She lowered the rifle. “You’re too late.”
Everything that he had lost these past months: Chiara. Marco. Stefano. Now her. “Where is she?”
“She went north. We believe she’s in Austria.”
Angelo sank back onto the bench, pulled off his cap, opened up his jacket. The cold air dispelled the heat trapped inside. Katharina leaned the rifle on the outside wall and stepped in front of him, her arms folded as if prepared to wait.
An alpine chough called, and another one answered. The wind blew through in a sudden gust, and the branches on the trees rattled.
He felt her touch on his shoulder but could not lift his head.
“You can come inside and rest,” she said. “Or I’ll bring you a blanket. You’ll catch your chill.”
He chuckled and felt the damp cold on his face. He looked at the dog. “Why are they all chained up?”
She glanced at the animal, then studied him. After a moment, she announced she was going to fetch her husband. “You’ll take breakfast with us.”
She started to move away, but he reached for her and managed a handful of her skirt.
“Does he know, Katharina?”
She looked at his hand, then at him. “Everything.”
“Am I safe?” He let go of the fabric he had been clutching.
Katharina looked amused. She studied the barn, and when she faced him again, her expression had softened to something more sympathetic. “Non tutto il male viene per nuocere,” she said. Not all evil comes to harm.
“He came to look for you in Bolzano,” she said. “I wanted him to meet you, to offer our assistance, for him to find out how the ministry might be better than the German League. He was only interested in getting Annamarie away from the city.” She dropped her head. “I should have told my husband about Marco long ago too. That he was your son, that he and Annamarie…” She looked up, her eyes shining. “I was afraid. So afraid. I did wrong by her. I should have been more open with her, more…”
Angelo shook his head. He did not belong here. “I should go.”
“No, Angelo,” she said softly. “No. Please. Everything is forgiven. If you can forgive me?”
He stared at her.
Katharina swiped at her eyes with the heel of her palm, then appeared to regain composure, determination. “Angelo, this time you stay. No more running away. If we are to work together, you will stay and help us now.” Without waiting for his answer, she turned away.
Surprised, he watched her go to the barn, the darkness beyond the door swallowing her whole. The sense of loss overwhelmed him, but there was no time for him to grieve. A man soon appeared in the opening, two boys on either side of him, one scowling, the smaller one just mildly curious. But it was the man who strode confidently across the yard to Angelo, hand outstretched, the smile cautious but genuine.
“I am Florian Steinhauser,” Katharina’s husband said.
Angelo clasped the man’s hand in his own. “Angelo Grimani.”
Chapter 22
Innsbruck, March 1938
A passport was supposed to say who you were, not who you might be or who you wished you could become. It lay on the unmade bed of her boarding room, and Annamarie picked it up, waving it, considering her options. Outside the boarding room window, the sky was slate grey with layers of cloud like stratas of flint. She drew back the lace curtain, made dingy from her cigarettes, and cracked open the window to the wet, cool smell of Innsbruck after a rain shower. Somewhere in the distance, the River Inn roared like a machine.
That day at the border, Annamarie had given the passport a glance before handing it to the shorter Italian guard. If he’d asked her who she was, she would not have known how to answer.
Sebastiano, despite her instructions, had been lingering near his automobile. “Just in case,” he’d said.
She had kept herself from looking over her shoulder at him, and when she received her passport back, took the few steps and crossed the border at the Reschen Pass. There, an Austrian guard checked
