The Breach

by Chrystyna Lucyk-Berger

  “But you speak German,” Florian said, his voice a pitch higher than normal.

  “I can do it for you. For a fee.” A flash of teeth.

  Katharina pulled on Florian’s coat sleeve. “We’re done here for now, husband. Thank you for your offer, Signor. We will see to it ourselves.”

  “As you wish,” the registrar said, and turned back to his books. Before they were out the door, he called them back. “Signor Steinhauser, I am just reminded. Signor Giovanni Thaler, he was a hunter, no?”

  Katharina stared at Florian. This was about the rifle.

  “Johannes Thaler,” Florian corrected him. “Yes, he was a hunter.”

  “The rifle?”

  “It was lost in the snow. You’ll have to wait until spring, after the melt.”

  Katharina felt the heat rising to her cheeks, and at that moment she loved her husband fiercely.

  The registrar made a face. “Ah, sì. You believe me to be a fool. I understand.”

  Florian shrugged. “Believe what you wish. I’m telling you, the rifle is lost beneath all that snow. I will bring it to you in the spring.”

  The registrar raised his pen, licked the tip, and flipped at a little booklet to his right. “So in April? You will bring it in April?” At the book he muttered in Italian, which Katharina understood well enough by now, “Or in this godforsaken place, it might be June.”

  “April,” Florian said.

  “It must be April,” the registrar said menacingly, “or you stay in jail until we find it. Capisce? It is the law.” Again the feigned apologetic look.

  Florian’s jawline flexed. “Yes.”

  “Signor Steinhauser? I remember now. You are not a citizen here, is that correct?”

  Neither Florian nor Katharina answered.

  The registrar looked at her, then at Florian. “You don’t like our laws, you can always go back to Germany.”

  Katharina’s heart dropped, and she tugged on Florian’s coat again until he finally went out the door with her.

  “Leave the translation issue to me,” she said outside. “Why don’t you go to the inn? Jutta and Hans are waiting for us. I’ll go find Iris.”

  “Iris? The Italian teacher?”

  “The schoolmistress and I know one another, and she’s helped me before. Florian, ignore that man. He’s only trying to provoke you.”

  He looked uncertain, but she bent to her daughter to make sure she was well bundled. She froze when she heard whistling and knew who it was before he stopped in front of them: the prefect, Captain Rioba.

  “Buongiorno, Signora Steinhauser. Con tutta la famiglia questa volta?”

  Katharina could feel Florian simmering next to her, but she felt a little thrill deep below the terror. She was beginning to understand what these people were saying. The prefect had asked if she were here with the whole family this time.

  “I hear from your grandfather’s death,” the prefect continued in German. “I am sorry. To both of you.”

  Katharina gave him a stiff nod, remembering how he’d made no effort to clarify himself to her at the post office the last time she’d seen him.

  “Did bank contact you about money owed?” Rioba asked. “I have tip for you, a clue.”

  Florian stepped forward, his cheeks flushed. “We will take care of those debts as they were arranged between Johannes Thaler and the bank.”

  “Sì, sì, I certain you will. But perhaps you know that you have big opportunity to buy off—no, scuzi, who can buy land these days? I mean sell off your land. Italian government put together offers for all properties where dam may be, capisce?”

  Florian shook his head. “There have been no formal plans for the dam. And surely none that would affect Arlund.”

  Rioba looked concerned. “No? Ah, they are coming. They are coming.”

  He winked at Katharina, and her heart galloped.

  What if her letter had only provoked Angelo Grimani? He was a Fascist now. What had she done?

  “No need to alarm,” the podestà continued. “You transfer deed into your name. They make offer when it is so far. Then you talk with them, eh? How do you say? We sing all from same songbook in the end.” He bent down and chucked Annamarie under the chin and looked up at Katharina. “Bella, come la mamma. E questo è l’ultimo! And here you have a new baby. A lad or lass?” he asked, using the Tyrolean slang for boy or girl.

  “A boy,” Katharina said.

  “Come si chiama?” Rioba asked, looking at Florian. “What his name?”

  “Bernd,” Florian said.

  Rioba lit up. “Benito! Splendido! Named after Il Duce, he will go far.”

  Chapter 7

  Graun, April 1923

  A nother funeral, and just months after Johannes Thaler’s. From her kitchen window, Jutta dabbed her eyes with the corner of her apron as first the pallbearers then the mourners spilled out of St. Katharina and into the drizzling rain. At the sight of the tiny coffin, her heart felt heavy.

  Melanie, the Planggers’ youngest. She’d just turned six when the melt spilled over the riverbanks, taking her with it. It almost sucked in the other three youngsters who had been playing with her at the Planggers’ tree. Jutta ought to be with Maria Plangger now instead of cooking for the wake, but Sara had run off in the night, most likely with the Italian builder, that he-man who had lurked around the back fence of the Post Inn.

  When Katharina—the baby in her arms—and Lisl appeared in the procession, Jutta rapped on the windowpane until they realised she was trying to get their attention. The women hurried through the back gate, and when they were in the kitchen, Jutta explained the emergency.

  Katharina placed Bernd in an empty apple crate, while Alois tugged Annamarie to a place where they could play.

  “We were wondering why you weren’t in church,” Katharina said. “What can we do?”

  “I haven’t got the strudel ready yet,” Jutta said. “The apples are over there. There’s all this food the farmers brought, but I’ve got the soup finished. Alois is out there pushing the tables to make one long one…” She was about to say, like we had for your Opa. “…per usual. One long table. And the wine jugs, of course, and the schnapps. There’s not a soul here who can be measured as being wealthier or poorer. Everyone gets soup today.”

  Lisl looked over Jutta’s shoulder at the Knödel dough. “I’ll roll and boil those. You get to the potatoes.”

  “That little chit,” Jutta muttered. “Sara knew the funeral was today.”

  “Scandalous, really,” Lisl agreed. “And to leave you all alone with Alois. Maybe she’ll come back.”

  “She had better not,” Jutta said. “If I ever get ahold of her, she’ll be sorry about a lot more than leaving me high and dry.”

  She turned to the potatoes just as the Widow Winkler barged through the door. “I will not be buried with that husband of mine!”

  Every time. With every funeral.

  “Yes, Frau Winkler,” Jutta said. “We know. That’s why you bought into the plot at St. Anna’s with the Blechs. I mean, the Foglios.”

  “What?” the old widow yelled. “Foglios?”

  Katharina made a noise like held-back laughter. “She means Klaus Blech. He sold you his plot on St. Anna’s hill.”

  The widow was not pacified. “I won’t be buried with him. Herr Winkler’s in hell, and I won’t be buried with him, and not with Klaus Blech either, that Walscher lover. Not with anybody…”

  Jutta nodded. “Not with anybody going to hell. We understand.”

  Katharina dropped the apple she was peeling, shaking her head. Lisl was also smirking. When she realised nobody was paying attention to her anymore, the widow left with one last indignant huff.

  “Jutta Hanny.” Katharina laughed when the door closed behind the old woman.

  “What? Klaus signed the pact with the devil when he changed his name.” She remembered the Steinhausers’ predicament. “Katharina, have you heard anything about the deed to the Hof?”

>   “Nothing yet. Every time we ask, they say to check next week.”

  Lisl clicked her tongue. “Even in the worst of times, our bureaucrats were more efficient.”

  “Well, it took a while with mine,” Jutta reminded them. “And then I got a new post office to boot.”

  “It doesn’t feel right.” Katharina frowned. “And I can’t shake that conversation with the prefect.”

  “Captain Rioba?” Jutta looked up. “What did he say?”

  A shadow passed over Katharina’s face. She shrugged. “Something about buying and selling, and it made Florian think that things are really getting serious about raising the lakes. Otherwise, why would the Italians be interested in purchasing land?”

  Lisl dipped the slotted spoon into the pot of dumplings. “Or pushing them off. But, Jutta, they would be talking to you first, and the church, don’t you think? Those are the two most important properties for them.”

  Jutta shook her head. “I wanted to believe that the Italians would honour our appeals. Forget our little frontier. But that’s too much to ask, isn’t it?”

  Lisl put her spoon down and leaned on the counter. “It is, Jutta. Every time the water runs over the Etsch, we look to the lakes. Every time a new machine or new technology appears in the valley, we look to the lakes. Every time the lights go out, we all look to the lakes. Georg says they will build a reservoir here whether we want it or not. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “Nothing?” Jutta remembered the letter then, the one she’d never asked about again—the one Katharina had sent to the Ministry of Civil Engineering some months ago. She scolded herself for forgetting, but she would not address it in front of Lisl.

  “Either way,” Katharina was saying, “until we get the deed, the farm is in what Florian calls no-man’s-land.”

  Over her shoulder, Jutta scoffed. “That’s what they’re calling us in general. People without a country.”

  She dumped the potato skins into a bowl with the other vegetable and fruit peels just as Alois came in with an empty tray. “Alois, take these to the compost pile and dump it clean.” She turned to the women. “Speaking of threats to our land, you must keep this to yourselves, but Hans has real troubles.”

  Katharina sighed. “I know he was looking to borrow more money, but—”

  “Federspiel denied his application and warned him of foreclosure. He told him the bank would like to continue working with him, was very sympathetic, but said the Italian bank owners are getting very pushy.” She sighed. “What I wouldn’t do to help him out.”

  Lisl hopped behind the counter like a small child at Christmas. “Jutta? Are you going to marry him?”

  “Heaven’s no, woman.” She axed a potato. “I just want to help a friend.” Behind her back, she could feel their questioning gazes, but she looked out the window. He still had not asked her. Fritz had been dead two years, and Hans still had not asked her. What was stopping him now was the threat to his farm. What was stopping him was his foolish shame.

  The blossoms on the apple tree were not quite yet open, and she could see the tops of people’s heads over the cemetery wall. At the compost pile, Alois was playing with the peelings, dropping them from the bowl by the finger-full.

  “What is that child doing now?” She shouted through the window, “Alois, hurry up now. Stop playing with that garbage. Girls, they’ll all be here soon.”

  Lisl was just draining the Knödel, and Katharina brought her the sliced apples for filling the strudel and left for the Stube. It was not for several minutes that Jutta realised Alois had still not come back. When she looked outside, she saw Rioba leaning against her gate, talking—yes, talking—with her son.

  She went out the back door. “Alois, time to get inside. Annamarie’s waiting for you.”

  The prefect waved at her nonchalantly, and Alois half skipped, half ran on his thick legs back to the house. She gave her son a cursory glance and then shoved him inside. “What did he want with you?”

  “To practice his German.” Alois sniffed.

  Rioba always put on a show about how important it was for everyone to understand him. Why would he be practising German with her “mentally retarded” son?

  From the window, she saw the mourners filing out of the cemetery. “They’re coming,” she announced. For another moment she watched the prefect leaning against the fence. He was holding something, but she could not make out what it was.

  When Katharina came in from the Stube, she told them that Henri had arrived and she had delegated the bar to him.

  Jutta nodded, grateful. Lisl’s sons were doing fairly well for themselves. Paul was reading the law and would soon be an attorney. David was interested in agriculture. Only Henri, the middle one, seemed to have not yet found a purpose.

  “Lisl,” she said on impulse, “if Henri wants it, I have a job for him, right here at this inn. With Sara gone, he can have it now. The people like him, he’s good at it, and it suits him.”

  Lisl smiled. “Why, Jutta. That’s very generous.”

  “It’s settled then. I’ll talk to him about it later today. Will you serve the soup?”

  As soon as she put the pastry into the oven, she could hear the people coming into the front hall and sent the women out to meet them while she quickly cleaned up the kitchen. The sound of raised voices in the yard drew her to the back door once more.

  Near the oak tree between her inn and the church, Hans and Florian were facing off with two carabinieri, Hans pounding a fist into his other hand, and Florian waving an arm at the mountains behind him. Rioba also looked serious as he talked with Father Wilhelm.

  “Jesus and Mary. Now what?” Jutta stripped off her apron and was swiftly outdoors and at their side. She saw that one carabinieri was holding an Italian flag.

  “What’s going on here?” she demanded.

  Pointing a finger at Captain Rioba, Hans said, “He wanted Father Wilhelm to consecrate their flag, but Father Wilhelm refuses. And this one”—Hans scowled at the second policeman—“shoved Father Wilhelm.”

  “You shoved back,” Rioba said, as if they were all kindergartners. “Not good with police. You not shove police.”

  Father Wilhelm turned on Rioba, his eyes glowering. Jutta had never seen their priest this angry.

  “This flag belongs to a country whose government is run by tyrants,” he shouted. “And your king was excommunicated. I too have my superiors to answer to.”

  Captain Rioba slowly shook his head, then waved a dismissing hand at the other two carabinieri. They threw Florian and Hans menacing looks but obediently left the yard.

  Rioba lifted his fez and smoothed his tight black-and-grey curls before fitting it back onto his head. “I not arrest you, padre, because you no bless bandiera,” he said, lifting a finger. “Or you shoving my men.” He had a warning gleam in his eye, and he leaned forward as if to whisper to Father Wilhelm, but he was loud enough for all to hear. “When I find what I look for, I will arrest you for the scuola.”

  Father Wilhelm took a step back. “What school?”

  Jutta clutched her throat. How did Rioba find out about the school?

  The prefect cocked his head and gave the priest a patronizing smile. “Clandestino. The under-the-ground school. You, padre, are headmaster. I see in your eyes, you all know I right. You are a priest—you cannot lie.”

  “Come with me,” Hans said. “We’ll take care of this later.”

  “But—” Jutta started.

  “Come with me,” Hans repeated. “All of you. There’s a wake to attend.”

  Florian and Father Wilhelm obeyed first and turned towards the inn. Jutta put her hand on Hans’s arm and let him lead her away, but before they could take three steps, Captain Rioba whistled. As if they were dogs to call back. But they all turned in their tracks, like obedient animals. She could not look Rioba in the face.

  Behind Jutta, Florian said, “What do you want?”

  “Forget your attack on Italian police.” Rioba�
��s voice was grave. “You pay something to policemen, make hurt pride go away, we forget incident. But padre Wilhelm more serious. We find proof for scuola, he go away a long time. And everyone with him.” He sniffed, turned his back on them, and strode off, whistling a slow and mournful tune.

  Hans’s arm flexed beneath Jutta’s hand. They all returned to the guesthouse wordlessly until they reached the back door.

  “We have to find Frederick,” Florian said. “We have to get the warning out about the school and see if he can negotiate with Rioba.”

  The hall and the Stube were crowded with people for the funeral. They pushed their way through, Jutta half greeting and half checking on the guests. She stopped to offer her condolences to the Planggers and left Father Wilhelm with them. When she and the others found Frederick, he was standing at the back of the Stube with that Italian schoolmistress and Katharina. Katharina, too, was always going to that teacher. What did those two possibly have in common?

  “Frederick, we need you,” Jutta said and cast that Iris woman a look to let her know she was not welcome.

  “Father Wilhelm is in trouble,” Florian said at Jutta’s elbow.

  “They wanted him to consecrate an Italian flag, and he wouldn’t,” Jutta explained.

  “It’s not about the flag,” Hans said. “The prefect—” He stopped, his eyes on the schoolmistress.

  Iris slipped sideways between them with a quiet “Scuzi.”

  “Frederick,” Jutta whispered when Iris was gone, “they found out about our school.”

  “How?”

  “Alois must have said something,” she told them. “I saw him talking to Captain Rioba out in the yard.”

  Their eyes grazed her. Those brief looks of accusations were quickly veiled over with pity, then understanding. It gnawed at her.

  Hans put a hand on her shoulder, his beard trembling as his jaw worked. He didn’t have to remind her. He had once suggested that sending Alois to Father Wilhelm could be too dangerous, but she had protested, even told him that he was being unkind. In truth, she had been desperate to send Alois to the lessons. Now their priest was in danger.