What had she expected? To see Angelo when they started building the reservoir? And what if she did meet him again?
It had been Opa’s idea to rein Angelo in by using blackmail, and she had succumbed to him, written that letter. Mentioned that she had a daughter. It had possibly worked to put some sort of end to the reservoir, but hadn’t he figured out that he’d left her pregnant? That he had a child here?
Hund whined, eyeing the chicken head, and Katharina shoved her away with one foot. “Just wait a minute.”
She chopped off the feet and dropped them to the dog.
Whatever Angelo knew or did not know, she would never find out because now there was no reason for him to come back here, no reason for her to make his acquaintance again. No reason, then, to ever tell Annamarie about her father. She glanced at her daughter and began to tear out the hen’s feathers.
The sound of Florian’s footfalls on the gravel startled her, and she turned to watch him go to the fountain to shave. He tipped the mirror that he’d hung near the spout so that he could see himself, oblivious to where she stood.
He never asked. Not even when Jutta had mentioned Angelo’s name, Florian never asked anything about Annamarie’s father. Katharina was certain that he suspected something because he never asked. And he didn’t ask again when she brought the news about the dam. She’d gone straight home after her walk with Iris, told Hans about it in the cart on the way, and then he told Florian about the dam and about Hitler’s trial in Germany, and the two talked into the night as she put the children to bed.
When she’d come back down, Hans’s last words were, “Then there’s no need to be talking about me leasing the Thalerhof.”
She still did not have the courage to ask Florian whether he’d changed his mind about going to Germany. Since last autumn, they often got into heated discussions about it, stalking around one another like two fighting cats. Then there were the times when Annamarie and she were practising Italian words, and Florian would sometimes cast the girl a dark look, or there would be a disapproving glint in his eye.
Katharina told herself she was imagining these things, and as the silence between them increased, there were days she dreamt of telling her husband everything. While they lay on their sides in bed, she could tell him who Annamarie’s father was and why he was. She had formulated the possible words over and over, and each time she would build in how much she loved Florian.
That was where she always stopped, at the point where it sounded all contrived.
And when she imagined what Florian would say, she could picture that disapproving look turning into one of utter disappointment, even disgust. Worst of all, he might ask her if Angelo was the reason she wanted so badly to stay at the Thalerhof, and no matter how hard she tried to deny it in that imagined conversation, she could not seem to muster enough convincing in her own heart.
The secret had grown too big. No thanks to Jutta, it had begun choking them. Angelo Grimani had woven his way back into their lives like a swallowwort, strangling them. Telling Florian all about it now would feel as if she’d been lying to him all this time. Telling her version now would be as futile as cutting back the swallowwort, because it would invade their lives more aggressively than ever. Florian could use a name, a real person, against her or, God forbid, against Annamarie.
She heard her husband yelp, then mutter a curse as he shook his razor. She turned back to the chicken, where Hund had left the feet and was licking at the bloodied stump.
“I said stop that,” she scolded the dog.
Florian went back into the house, the mirror swinging from the wooden spigot.
“Mama, eggs,” Annamarie said, showing her the little basket. “Uova.”
“That’s right,” Katharina said, picking one. “Uova. That’s Italian. Now, go feed the rabbits, and then we have to get to the barn.”
When she was finished hanging up the chicken, she went to the stalls and greeted Hans, who was clearing the sheep stall of manure. She picked up an empty milk tin. Florian was already at Resi, so she moved on to the stall across from him as Annamarie went to find the kittens in the back of the barn.
“Cut yourself shaving earlier?” she asked.
Florian grunted.
“Bad?”
“Razor broke.”
“I’ll get a new one next time I’m in town.”
“No need. Got another one.”
Hans must have lent him one. She clenched her stiff hands before putting salve on them, and heard Florian pick up the tin to weigh and record it before moving to Alma.
“Katharina?”
She looked up. He was half-hidden by the cow.
“I have to bring that rifle into town today.”
“No, Florian.”
“I have to, Katharina.” He gave her a hard look, and she was angry that he was hiding behind the cow to tell her this.
“Fine, Florian. Do what you need to.”
“Would you rather I go to jail?”
She shook her head, trying to swallow the tears that were rising in her throat. “I said, do what you need to. But I’m not coming with you.”
“Didn’t expect you to,” he muttered, and disappeared behind Alma’s flank.
They worked like that, in stony silence, until they’d made their way down the entire row of stalls. She went to Resi to scratch the cow’s ears. That action always comforted Katharina, but now she only felt sad. She remembered when Resi was born, the wolf in the yard, the one she’d shot with Opa’s rifle.
She left Resi when Florian passed by, and still avoiding her husband, she pitched fresh hay into the troughs. She was almost finished when Bernd started crying from his basket. By the time she reached him, he was already trying to crawl out. Florian came out to line up the milk tins, face down, back turned. Walking away again.
Katharina led the children into the kitchen and set out their breakfast. Hans came in, hands and beard dripping from his washing, and he took a seat between Bernd and Annamarie. Bernd pushed himself against Hans’s arm, reaching for the bread, and Hans broke off a piece for him before filling his bowl with whey.
At the stove, Katharina wanted to ask where Florian was, when her husband walked in, touched her shoulder, and moved back to the door.
“Come with me,” was all he said.
She followed him outside and into the workshop between the house and the stable. This was about the rifle. She braced herself for a fight, deciding there would only be one winner anyway, and it was not going to be she. It was never she.
Florian’s carpenter tools were hung neatly on the wall as always, but underneath on the worktable, Katharina recognised her mother’s pine chest and, next to that, her father’s shaving kit and a sheet of paper. It was the drawing her mother had made of the swallows and the nest, the one Katharina had coloured in so that her father could paint them onto the panels. She looked at Florian, surprised.
“I needed a razor, so I looked for your father’s old kit, and I found this,” he said, lifting the drawing. “I remember you telling me about this, but I didn’t know you still had it.”
“I forgot I’d put it in there.”
He lowered the sheet of paper and turned to the box. She wrapped her arms around herself. There was something else. He’d found Angelo. He must have. Her heart tumbled against her ribs.
His voice was abnormally loud as he reached behind the chest. “I wanted to surprise you and paint the box, so I emptied it straight away.”
When he was facing her again, in both his hands was the bloodstained shirt and, on top of it, the blank cream envelope containing the letter she’d written for Annamarie, or for herself, to make sense of it all. It was still sealed.
Angry tears rose, and the image of her husband swam before her.
Softly, he said, “Sometimes, the answers come without having to ask.” He held her things out to her as if they would explode.
She shook her head, refusing to take them from him, and swiped at the fir
st traitor tear. “Jutta told you.”
“No, she did not. I’ll admit, Katharina, I did ask her, but she wouldn’t tell me anything. She said it was not her secret to tell.” He looked down, his hands trembling as if the shirt and the letter weighed heavily in them. “I’m ashamed, Katharina.”
He was ashamed?
“I pride myself on being a man of my word, but I broke my promise to you.” When he looked at her again, he was pleading with her. “Katharina, you don’t have to tell me what’s in the envelope. I assume it’s a letter, maybe to him, but you don’t have to tell me. I don’t know what makes you so determined to stay on here or so determined to hang on to the past.”
How could she explain something she did not understand herself?
He placed the shirt and the letter back on the table before facing her again. “I know you don’t want to leave Arlund, and I accept that you do not feel strongly enough about me, about my role in this family, to go to Germany.”
She started to protest, but he raised a finger to his lips, and she stared at him in bewilderment. He turned away, and Katharina imagined she was driving him to the final edge, that he would take a tool down and turn against her. Instead, at the end of the workbench, Florian lifted a flat piece of wood, as broad as himself and as high as his middle, and came to stand before her again.
“I wanted to save this until our wedding anniversary, but…”
When he turned the wooden board to expose the other side, Katharina gasped. Florian was holding a sign, a plaque, with fine burnt lettering and design. Upon a mountain landscape, Graun’s Head towering in the middle, he had burned in the word Katharinahof.
She stared at him in disbelief. This time, the tears came for a different reason, streaming down her face. She lifted it from his hands and held it out in front of her.
“Katharina, I’m going to sell the house in Nuremberg and pay off the bank. We’ll get the deed then. I may be listed on it, but this is your farm now.”
The relief that washed over her was so violent, she had to shove the sign back at him so that she could brace herself on her thighs.
“Katharina? Are you all right?”
She nodded but could not speak.
He bent towards her, trying to help her up, but she wanted to stay there, to feel the intensity in this change between them. To revel in it.
“You and Bernd and Annamarie, you’re my family now,” her husband was saying. “Katharina, I would do anything to protect all of you, but I need you to make a decision.”
“Yes,” she gasped, and the tears came for a different reason now.
“No more secrets, Katharina. Please. They’re poison. From here on in, we’re honest with one another.”
“Yes.” She straightened, still shaking, still gasping. She looked at the sign again, resting up against her mother’s pine chest, and shook her head. Katharinahof.
“Florian,” she said, the emotion catching in her throat, “what you’ve done for me? I don’t deserve this.”
He lifted her chin and gazed at her. “I chose you, not because you needed someone for Annamarie but because I love you. Now it’s your turn to choose.” He picked the shirt off the table. The letter fell to the floor with a soft clunk. “You may keep him a secret,” Florian said, “and it will keep us as strangers living under the same roof. Or choose to be open with me. Choose to trust me. Maybe even choose to love me.”
His face was smooth, expectant, as if he seemed ready to accept either decision from her.
From the house, Katharina heard Annamarie squeal and Hans laugh. She would axe that swallowwort for all it was worth and axe it all the more. All she wanted was to be in this man’s arms, to raise her children with him. Here, on the Thalerhof. On the Katharinahof.
She wiped the tears with the back of her hands, and when she saw him clearly again, his eyes were bright, caution and hope pooling together. She gathered the strength to step forward, bringing her face so close to his, their foreheads touched.
“I choose you, Florian,” she said steadily. “You. We will always choose you.”
Chapter 12
San Remo, Ligurian Sea, August 1924
F rom the veranda of the Hotel Astoria, Angelo watched the silhouettes of fishing boats come into the San Remo harbour as cats of every colour slithered towards the docks. Along the promenade, lined by umbrella pines, hawkers were slowly putting their wares away, locking up the scent of roasted pine nuts and spun sugar. He watched a harried family of six extracting itself from one of the blue-and-white-striped beach huts, the children all in the same black-and-white bathing costumes, only different sizes. Behind them came the hotel staff, sweeping off sand from the lounge chairs and folding down the umbrellas. A young couple strolled by on the veranda, past the line of potted red geraniums and white oleander, so absorbed in one another that Angelo was certain they were honeymooning.
As the tide came in, each new wave crept a little farther up the shore. He could imagine the water reaching for those abandoned footprints on the beach and exchanging them for remnants from the sea. Behind him, he heard his father coming and took one last look at the beach below before turning to face the Colonel. Many things had been thrown from the depths in these recent months, especially for his father.
The Colonel was already dressed for dinner. He leaned on the balustrade next to Angelo and gazed towards the water.
“Everyone settled in?” Angelo asked.
“Your sisters and your mother are still preening. And Chiara?”
“I imagine she’s getting ready as well.”
“Good. We have a little time to talk about the hearings.”
Angelo sighed. The reason for coming here was to get away from the committee and the journalists, if only for a few days.
“This charade of a family holiday can start when Pietro and Beatrice arrive at the weekend,” the Colonel said. “By that time I’ll have convinced you to give up this martyrdom you’re so keen on accomplishing.”
Angelo felt his jaw clench. “In the end, I am the one responsible for the Gleno break. At least in part. You are the other part.”
The Colonel straightened. “And you are prepared to step down as minister, Angelo? Is that your intention? People in power remain in power because of the dirty work they had to do to get there. And they remain in power because they have a strategy to implement. But if you want to stage this little battle with me, then you had better keep yourself off the front line, or you will achieve nothing.”
Angelo shook his head. “You have your ways. I have mine.”
“Pin it on your chief engineer.”
Of course his father would suggest that. To hell with him. “Stefano would be ruined. He has a family. Young children.”
“Indeed, like you. My men will send him where nobody will recognise him. He’ll be rewarded amply enough.”
“I need Stefano. He’s been my number one man. He grew up in Bolzano. Knows the Tyroleans.”
His father scowled. “Then it’s time he gets to know the rest of his country.”
“And who will Grimani Electrical sacrifice? Barbarasso?”
“He is prepared.”
Angelo burst out laughing. “For prison?” Of course his father would shoot his favourite pet if it meant survival.
“Either that, or for a fee. Leave that to me. And as you waste your time reinventing safety standards, I have time to consider how to restore my business. A new name, for example. But, Angelo, mark my words: I will recover, and more than that, I will make sure my interests move forward.”
When they heard Marco’s voice, they both turned around. Chiara was coming out, holding the boy’s hand. She wore a loose black dress, the hem embroidered in soft beige and ochre, and a matching blouse tied squarely at the hip. On her head, she wore a close-fitting black cap, her hair done painstakingly in the latest fashion. The only thing that ruined her evening attire was her expression. Angelo knew the Colonel’s presence caused the strain.
Th
e Colonel lowered his voice. “When I’m done, Marco will have something to take over.”
“That’s my job,” Angelo snapped. “I’m his father.”
“Of course it is. You see, it’s just that with Marco, I have a second chance to do things right. You wouldn’t deny me that.”
Angelo put an end to the quarrel by swinging his son up onto the sun-washed balustrade. He pointed to the sea, positioning himself between the Colonel and Chiara. “Tomorrow, Marco, we’re going to hunt for seashells.”
His wife was facing the cable car gliding down from Monte Bignone. “And at the weekend, your grandparents d’Oro will take you up the mountain,” she said. “You’ll see the whole of the Ligurian Sea from the top. Won’t that be fine?”
The Colonel grunted. “You needn’t wait until the weekend. Nonna and I will take you tomorrow.”
Angelo bent towards his son’s ear but made sure the Colonel could hear him. “We have three weeks. There’s time for everything.” He cast his wife a look before addressing his father. “Chiara and I would like to go bathing tomorrow and take Marco to build sandcastles, things a four-year-old should do. If you’re intent on preparing yourself for the hearings, please do so, but not with me.”
His father checked his pocket watch. “We’ll be late for dinner. I’m going to fetch the rest of our party.” He jabbed a finger into Angelo’s shoulder. “You and I are not finished. Think about what I said. It will not be you, but Stefano who will carry the blame for the Gleno.”
When the Colonel was inside, Chiara put a hand on his arm. “What is your father up to now?”
Angelo put Marco down, and he ran along the landing. “Let’s just enjoy ourselves, please. I’ll go get dressed. Then we’ll have dinner and go to the casino, as planned. There are so many people here from Bolzano, my father will be too distracted to bother us.”
From her expression, he hadn’t convinced her. He might remind her that he’d suggested they go on holiday alone in the first place, but she had insisted that her parents come along, and then his mother had started up. It was not worth arguing about it now. Besides, it would be advantageous to keep the peace.
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