Winter Passing

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Winter Passing Page 24

by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma


  A taxi took her to the train station, where Darby purchased a ticket for Hallstatt. As she rode the white ferry across the dark waters of Hallstattersee, the memory returned that her grandfather had driven the ferry—perhaps this very one. She gazed at the driver and tried to imagine what her grandfather had looked like. She’d never seen a photograph of him.

  Darby rang the bell on the desk of Gasthaus Gerringer and heard footsteps upstairs. Sophie exclaimed as she saw Darby and rushed to hug her tightly.

  “I so happy to see you again,” Sophie said. “You still in Austria, I see.”

  “I went back to California but had to return,” Darby said happily, as if they were old friends.

  “I believe your same room available today.” Sophie reached for a book under the counter.

  “I don’t need a room,” Darby said, wondering what response she was about to receive. “I came to talk to your grandmother again.”

  “I think she will see you.” Sophie’s eyes sparkled, much to Darby’s relief. “She is much changed since you last came. My mother and I think it because she got her past in open and she know we still love her. Please, give me moment and I will be back.”

  A few minutes later, Darby stood before the old woman. She looked the same as last time, except there was no hmmp greeting. Instead the old woman nodded at Darby’s “Grüß Gott.”

  Darby sat in the chair across from Frau Gerringer. “Bruno Weiler,” Darby said, watching for any changed expression. “You gave me his name, and I thank you. I’ve found that Herr Weiler was at Mauthausen as an SS guard, like you said. I’m asking if you will tell me everything you know about him.”

  Sophie spoke to her grandmother, then back to Darby. “What have you found, she asks?”

  “I haven’t found a lot of facts.” Darby sighed and looked straightforwardly into the old woman’s eyes. “I haven’t found the facts I need. But I’m learning a lot about my grandmother and about myself. When I was here before, I came because my grandmother asked me to. I did not tell you that the records say my grandmother was not Celia Müller. They say Celia Müller died at Mauthausen. But I know that Tatianna Hoffman died under Celia’s name, instead of her. Now I am here for myself. I want to prove what happened so I can change the memorials and give Tatianna the honor she deserves. If possible, I also want to find what happened to my family inheritance.”

  The old woman didn’t speak for a few moments. Then Sophie translated for her. “She say you are learning many things, as even this old woman is. But your family inheritance. Many people seek such things today, but they are only objects, not lives.”

  “Yes. And if they are not recovered, it is God’s will. But Tatianna gave up her life, and I’m alive because of it. I must at least try to do my part. If I fail, I’ll know that at least I’ve tried.”

  “She will tell you what she know about Bruno Weiler.”

  Darby felt she’d just passed some kind of test. She relaxed against the back of her chair and thanked the old woman.

  Sophie listened to her grandmother. “She say they all were in school together. Bruno was younger. He was a funny boy, always joking and laughing. But father very stern. Bruno not like to go home when father not working. He ate dinner at her family’s house many times. He and younger brother were friends, also good friends with your grandmother’s brother. My grandmother married young, but she still live in village and see this.” Sophie paused and listened again. “Very near same time of marriage, Bruno leave for Vienna to stay with aunt. He keep in contact with her brother and visit sometime—he cut off communication with Celia’s brother; Warner was his name. I’m sure because he was part Jewish. One winter, Bruno comes with Nazi youth information. He try to get village boys to join and go to Vienna, but her father not let brother.”

  The back-and-forth dialogue continued as Darby took quick notes. “They hear nothing for long time. Then brother get letter about Bruno’s position at Mauthausen. Later, her brother join war and was killed first week in battle. They not hear from Bruno again. Then after the war, she read he was charged with crimes and sent to prison. Nothing else after that.”

  Darby glanced up from her paper. “I found out he went to university in Vienna after he was released from prison in 1957.”

  “She say his mother moved to Vienna after his father die. She live with her sister there. Mother name was Dorthe Schumacher Weiler and her sister was Heike Schumacher. Heike was not married.”

  “When was the last time she heard anything about them?” Darby asked.

  The old woman shrugged and scratched her chin before speaking again.

  “She say it had to be around 1950 or 1955. Long time ago.”

  “Can you remember anything else?” Darby wrote down the information as the old woman shook her head.

  “She say that is all she know of family and of Bruno.” Frau Gerringer put a hand on Darby’s arm. “She say she hope you discover all that you seek.”

  Darby nodded and clasped the old woman’s hand, placing her other hand on top. “Danke. I hope so too.”

  A distant roll of thunder echoed through the mountains to the village.

  “Oh, I hear that storm coming tonight,” Sophie said. She opened the curtain, and Darby could see the rain already beginning to fall.

  “Perhaps I’ll stay tonight after all,” Darby said. She had brought a duffel bag with extra clothes just in case she found some lead to follow.

  “I’ll give you your room, then,” Sophie said with a bright smile. “And you will eat dinner with our family.”

  The mountain storm crashed in quickly, and Darby was glad she’d decided to stay. She loved the fearful sound of thunder in the mountains as it rolled down peaks and ridges, echoing through crevasse and saddleback. Sophie gave her the key to her second-story lakeside room without showing it to her, since Darby wasn’t a customer but a guest now. She came down for dinner with the Gerringer family of three women that reminded her of her own family. Later she carried up an electric heater to use until the water radiator that was warmed by a woodstove downstairs grew hot enough to heat the rooms above. Darby fell asleep bundled within the thick feather comforter while winter howled and beat its fist against the windows.

  But late in the night, something woke her. Silence. Darby wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and stepped onto the balcony. Her bare feet touched cold snow. She slipped her feet into her boots without tying the laces and returned outside. The moon through the puffy, after-storm clouds had turned the lake and air and snow and trees into a deep winter blue.

  Darby had never cared much for winter. The season came and stripped the land of life. It disguised itself in purest white, but destroyed all it touched.

  “I’m sorry I’m a traitor,” Darby whispered to the broken, limp sticks that last fall had probably held bright flowers. “But I can’t hate winter tonight.”

  As she looked into the blue world so still and full of magic, she wondered about the winter that stole life from the land. But perhaps winter was not the end, but actually the beginning. The harsh conditions stripped away all that was hidden in the summer months. It beat and seemed nearly to destroy until the essence of all things was made visible. Both good and bad could not hide from the cutting winds and tempest storms. And only through a winter passing could life be brought to its knees in surrender and prepared for rebirth.

  Darby stared into the deep winter sky.

  This is your winter, she could hear Grandma say. We all pass through times of winter. But winter will pass. And as you heal, you find yourself stronger, richer, more alive than ever before. Darby imagined the gentle hand, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The sky called to her, and Grandma’s voice disappeared. Instead she heard a voice from deeper within her soul, a voice she’d only begun to know: This is your winter, Darby. Embrace it as I bring life in you again.


  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “We have half the letters translated,” Professor Voss said as Darby’s white breath was cut in two when she closed the door to the phone booth. The cold morning shone with the covering of new snow on trees and walkways, a crystal blanket of white.

  “Do they offer any information?” she asked, warming her mittened hand by rubbing it against the side of the phone.

  “Not really. They are all letters your grandmother wrote to your grandfather over the past sixty years. They tell what is happening in her life, how much she misses him, the life events of her daughter, and later, grandchildren.”

  “Why do you think they were written in German? My grandmother never spoke one word of German that I ever heard—until on her deathbed.”

  “I am no psychologist, but perhaps, because of her vow to never speak German, it helped to write the letters. Or maybe she held a bit of hope that she would someday find Gunther and be able to give them to him.”

  “It’s pretty sad,” Darby said.

  “Ja, but also very inspiring. They had great love. So you are returning to Salzburg?”

  “I’m going to Vienna,” she said and began to shiver.

  “What is happening?”

  “I found out for certain that Bruno Weiler knew both my grandmother and Tatianna. His aunt and mother lived in Vienna after the war. Perhaps I’ll find one of them in the city or another Weiler. Since I’m partway there, I decided I might as well see your capital before returning to Salzburg.”

  “You will probably find nothing, but a trip to Vienna is essential for all travelers at one time or another. There are also many places with archives in Vienna, but in German, of course. I wish I could be there to help, but I have classes all week.”

  “I’ll make a quick trip and see what I can find.” Darby’s teeth chattered. “I have so many trails to follow. There is the search for the brooch and coins. This morning I asked at the museum if any Celtic coins had been discovered in Hallstatt, but they said no. Then there’s finding proof about Tatianna, and I’d like to gain more information about my family, especially my grandfather.”

  “It seems Bruno Weiler is the key to many things now.”

  “Yes.” Her entire body was shivering, and Darby wished for more of the warm fruit tea she’d had at breakfast. “But I’m freezing out here, so I’ll call you from Vienna.”

  “Katrine is here and says to go to Demel’s Bakery. It is the best in Vienna.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “And Darby.” Professor Voss’s usually cheerful voice sounded serious. “Be careful.”

  Brant had accomplished little of his workload in the last two days with two companies pressuring him to finish his end of the work. He received notice that he would not be called as a witness after all in the Aldrich case—the duo had opted for a plea bargain. Part of him was relieved; another part longed to face the man and woman and give his testimony. But beyond the Aldrich case, much more was bothering him. He had to decide what to do about Darby. Should he simply tell her everything and see what happened? Suddenly, Brant knew. Professor Peter Voss. Darby said the professor believed her. Once Brant told him the facts, that could change, and Peter would know what to do next.

  Brant consulted his desktop Rolodex and punched in the phone number.

  “Peter, this is Brant. I need to talk to you.”

  “Well, all I must say is, it is about time.”

  Brant shook his head. “Then you really do believe all of this.”

  “Definitely. Why do you not?”

  “Because it can’t be true.”

  “Why not?”

  Gunther. Gunther could not have been wrong all these years. “We need to talk. I’ll be right there.”

  Darby had ridden a train only once, and that was an antique locomotive in Mount Shasta, California, which included a staged train robbery. The trains of Europe were like moving from a Model T Ford to a modern sports car. They were a reliable way of transportation here—running on schedule, efficient, and comfortable. She climbed aboard a nonsmoking car and found a vacant section where the seating was divided into separate rooms. As she stored her luggage overhead, the train whooshed from the Hallstatt station. The Eurail pass she’d purchased in Salzburg allowed a week of travel over a four-month period. If Vienna didn’t work out, Darby could board a train and go nearly anywhere in Europe. By morning she could be in Paris or Rome or Amsterdam—the thought was tempting.

  Snow flurries turned to raindrops as the train journeyed from the northern mountains to the open rolling hills of Upper Austria into the Danube region. After a while near the Danube, Darby looked up from her Austrian Tours map toward the direction of Mauthausen. She was back, riding past what would forever rest on the hillside with its ghosts and ash pile.

  The rolling hills and fields succumbed to dense forest—the Vienna Woods that led into the heart of the city itself. Darby grabbed her bag and waited for the doors to slide open. She quickly walked through the smoky train station toward the exit, then halted, gazing up at the buildings and bustle and feeling like Mary Tyler Moore. She breathed the city—ah, Vienna! Home for centuries to artists, musicians, culture, and coffeehouses. The imperial city was a bridge between the East and West, a mixture of cultures and ethnic groups from Viennese to Slavic heritages. These streets had seen empires rise and fall, had been the toast of the classical world and the host for Cold War conferences where surely spies met their contacts with plots of espionage.

  Darby had read about the city in her guidebook like every good tourist should, but added her own notes from her grandmother’s stories. For Vienna had also welcomed a newly wed couple for their honeymoon. Darby remembered her grandmother saying, “Salzburg is quaint with charm—your darling welcoming with outstretched arms. Vienna is like an enchanter who draws you with his sophistication, though you fear his power.”

  Darby felt small in the midst of the enchanter. The afternoon sky sprinkled snow flurries as she hurried toward a line of taxis parked along the street. Though she hadn’t made hotel reservations, there was no doubt where she’d stay, despite the cost.

  “Hotel Sacher, please, bitte,” Darby said as the driver of a white Mercedes took her lone duffel bag.

  “Ah,” the man said with a smile. “Very good choice.”

  The Mercedes zipped forward, darting in and out of traffic. Darby wanted to look at the map and out the window toward the sights, but she kept her eyes on the road ahead. This was carsick travel. As a delivery truck whirled past them and then they zipped around two cars, Darby knew she’d made the right decision not to rent a car with these crazy streets and crazier drivers. They zoomed past a long park and again Darby wished she could read her guidebook and map. Unlike Salzburg, with the Old City and sights in the same area, Vienna stretched out with its palaces, parliament buildings, opera houses, parks, and historical sites scattered around the huge “inner stadt” or city center. The famous Ringstraße hemmed it all into a labyrinth of connected one-way streets, with the Danube River making a flowing barrier on one end.

  Darby was completely turned around, believing they should be leaving the city, when she saw the massive State Opera House. The taxi stopped on the opposite side of the street. She stepped out of the cab and looked up to a towering hotel with red banners and flags fluttering in the late afternoon breeze. Hotel Sacher.

  The driver tipped his hat before speeding away. Darby stood at the red carpet entrance, staring up at the luxurious hotel. Her faded jeans, brown boots in need of polish, and brown, hip-length leather jacket didn’t quite fit with the opulence of the hotel, but she eagerly walked inside anyway.

  The receptionist smiled and found a single room for over two hundred and fifty United States dollars. Darby signed the paper with a twinge of guilt for spending so much. But it didn’t take long to feel it was well worth the c
ost. She found a hall of photographs of VIP guests: Ernest Hemingway, Princess Caroline of Monaco, John F. Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth II of England, the Dalai Lama, and Thomas Mann, to name a few. She smiled at the portrait of the Bee Gees, then spotted Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austria’s golden boy. All were guests of the famous Hotel Sacher, where she arrived alone with her duffel bag. The Sacher had been built in the 1870s on the site of the Kärntner Tor Theatre where Beethoven premiered his Ninth Symphony.

  Darby took the elevator up and entered her room, feeling like a princess arriving at her royal chamber. The room was fit for royalty with chandeliers, mint-green carpet, and matching bedspread and curtains. A white ornate desk and chair sat near a window, and beautiful oil paintings adorned the walls. Somewhere in this same hotel, her grandparents had spent their first nights of love together. The thought made her single bed look very lonely. Darby tugged on the gold chain and studied the ring on the end of it. She ran her finger around the edge. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you? This time you’re alone without your other half. A lot like I am.”

  Darby took off the necklace and settled for a luscious bubble bath before plopping on the bed and perusing the room-service menu. She called in and chose the Wiener schnitzel with Sachertorte for dessert.

  The history of the hotel’s famous dessert was created before the hotel was even built, a brochure read. In 1832, Franz Sacher was an apprentice chef when Prince Metternich requested a special dessert for his elite guests. The problem—the head chef was ill and sixteen-year-old Franz was assigned the task. Now the Sacher annually used one million eggs, 70 tons of sugar, 60 tons of chocolate, 35 tons of apricot marmalade, 25 tons of butter, and 30 tons of flour to create its famous tortes, which were shipped around the world.

 

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