Hidden Among the Stars

by Melanie Dobson

  Max stepped onto the Persian rug in the salon, a red carpet stitched with golden thread. “Other people like me?”

  His mother waved her hand. “Not you either!”

  “Of course him.” His father flicked ashes into the tray. “Every man able to join will be fighting for the Reich.”

  “I won’t fight for Hitler.”

  His father’s eyes narrowed, eyebrows punctuating his words with a rigid line. “You will fight.”

  “No—”

  “They’ll kill any man who refuses to join.”

  His mother’s hand slipped up to her mouth, unsuccessfully muffling her gasp as his father’s declaration hung in the air.

  “I still won’t fight . . . at least not with them.” Max’s words seemed to ripple out across the room, slamming into the hutch of china plates, shaking the portraits on the walls.

  He was no martyr. He didn’t want to die, didn’t even know if he was truly brave enough to resist. But how could he spread this hatred born from a man obsessed? A man stirring up the deep-seated animosities already in their country, stomping all over people in his scramble to the top?

  Exactly how high was high enough for Adolf Hitler? Max suspected that each time the man climbed to the top of the ladder he would add another rung. And then another. Even if Hitler conquered the entire world, Max doubted it would be enough.

  He inhaled deeply, trying to calm his racing heart. “A herd, that’s what Hitler calls the people of Germany and now Austria. As if we’re animals capable of being led straight to slaughter.”

  “That’s not true,” his father retorted.

  But his mother inched to the edge of her chair. “Where did you hear that?”

  “From Herr Ebner,” he said, recalling yesterday’s lesson. “Or actually, from Hitler himself. All the students are required to read Mein Kampf. According to Hitler, whoever owns the youth owns the future.”

  “That’s true about the youth,” his mother said quietly.

  His father crushed his cigarette against the glass. “But not about the herd.”

  “Have you read Mein Kampf?” Max asked.

  His father shook his head.

  “Hitler believes ridding ourselves of the Jewish people is the only solution to what he terms a problem. He’s created an enemy for everyone to rally against.”

  “He doesn’t have to create an enemy.” His father paced toward the window that overlooked Ringstrasse before he turned back to them. “The enemy is already here.”

  “The Jews are not our enemy,” Max insisted.

  “They are everyone’s enemy.”

  His mother blanched. “Wilhelm!”

  Max needed to make his father understand. “The Weiss family—”

  “We cannot align ourselves with such people.”

  “They are our friends.”

  His father shook his head. “They are not friends of the Reich.”

  Max’s stomach burned. “And we are?”

  “Not friends,” his mother said, avoiding her husband’s gaze. “But we must collaborate with the new government, for the sake of your father’s job.”

  It felt like they were being mowed down, run completely into the ground without speaking out. Or pushing back.

  And at times, it felt as if he were just as guilty as his parents.

  “The priest just spoke about loving our neighbor.”

  His father reached for his pack of Woodbines and dumped them onto the coffee table, a dozen gray branches falling off a tree. He lit another one, and its smoke clouded the room again. “We’re only asking that our Jewish neighbors return to their homes.”

  “Luzi Weiss is as Austrian as me.”

  “She’s an Austrian Jew.”

  “Luzi was born and raised in this city. So were her parents.”

  “But her father’s parents were born in Hungary,” his father said. “They will find a good home there.”

  He and his father—they would never see eye to eye on this. Max looked at his mother, hoping for support. “You know the Weiss family belongs here.”

  His mother reached for one of the cigarettes, clinging to it as she shook her head sadly. “I don’t know who belongs where anymore.”

  Max wished he could shake them both out of their stupor. The world was going mad, following a madman. They couldn’t just sit in their chairs, smoking cigarettes, as if nothing had happened.

  “If you want them gone—” Max turned back to his father now—“you could speak with one of the consulates and obtain visas for them.”

  “I must keep myself focused on cooperating with this new regime, or they will decide to take over the bank.”

  “You care more about your job than about the Weiss family.”

  “I care more about my family! It is my chief duty before God and man.”

  “Mother?”

  She shook her head, seemingly helpless to offer any support as she’d done in the past when his father was angry about one of the injured or abandoned animals Max rescued from the streets of Vienna or the woods around Hallstatt. She, like him, hated seeing any creature in pain.

  “Then perhaps I should go as well.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

  Turning, Max rushed back down the hallway, toward the front door of the house.

  “Where are you going?” his father shouted, but he didn’t respond. They should know exactly where he was headed.

  And he wished he didn’t have to return home.

  “Frau Weiss,” Max called, knocking again on the apartment door.

  Someone moved inside. He could see a shadow behind the frosted glass, but no one answered.

  “Nina?” he shouted as he jostled the handle. “Please open the door.”

  He’d already apologized to Dr. and Frau Weiss for distracting their daughter at the ball, but while he’d visited Dr. Weiss in the past weeks, Frau Weiss hadn’t let him see Luzi.

  This morning Dr. Weiss’s office was closed.

  He tugged a paper bag out of his rucksack, the contents a loaf of rye, some salami, cheese, and cherries imported from Greece. He didn’t know much about caring for people, not like the pets he’d collected over the years, but he wanted to be faithful in helping the Weiss family and anyone else he could until God made right this world that had turned upside down. Then he could help restore some of what had been lost.

  He pressed his ear against the door, hoping to catch the melody of Luzi’s violin, but he heard nothing now. Not even the shuffling of feet.

  “Nina?” He pounded on the door again. “Luzi?”

  His voice echoed off the walls on the landing and trailed down the steps, fading away. He wanted to kick the door down, if only to make sure Luzi was well, but even if he was able to manage it, it would only make her parents more angry at him.

  Just as he stepped away, the doorknob began to turn. He froze on the landing, waiting for it to open, hoping Luzi was waiting for him on the other side. Instead it was Frau Weiss, her normally groomed hair a frightening sight matted to her scalp, her neat attire replaced by a housedress like Nina wore.

  He rushed forward. “Are you ill?”

  She shook her head slowly, her shoulders slumped. “What do you want from us, Max?”

  “You’re still angry at me. . . .”

  “Of course I’m angry. That ball was supposed to be a crowning moment for Luzia, to show Vienna that she is talented and bright and—” her voice broke—“unique.”

  “Everyone knows she’s talented.”

  “But it didn’t change anything. They released her from the conservatory last week.”

  He swore. “Because of the dance?”

  She shook her head. “They expelled all the Jewish students. The walls are closing in around us. . . .”

  If only he could assure her that the Viennese would come together soon and fight for all their citizens. “I want to help.”

  “You must stay away from her, Max.”

  But staying awa
y was the last thing he could do. “We will find a way for you to leave Vienna.”

  “No country has welcomed us yet, and the Nazis, they are making it difficult for us to go.”

  Max clenched his fists. His father said that Hitler wanted the Jews out of Vienna, but why wouldn’t he let them leave? “If Luzi and I married, we could obtain visas for your whole family.”

  “Oh, Max. It’s no longer legal for her to marry an Aryan man, even if she converts.”

  His chest seemed to collapse at her words. How could it be illegal for them to marry?

  “Some of our friends have received visas into England and China. Dr. Weiss is at the American consulate today, hoping to obtain a visa to work there. Luzia’s received a letter of acceptance into Juilliard—”

  “Surely one of Dr. Weiss’s patients could speak for your family.”

  Frau Weiss seemed to look through him, her gaze traveling someplace else for the moment. “The Nazis closed his practice.”

  “That’s not possible—”

  “We’re all cursed, it seems, in their eyes.”

  “What about Hungary?” he asked. “You must still have relatives there.”

  She shook her head. “My family fled from the anti-Semitism.”

  He picked up the paper bag with food and held it out. She eyed it but didn’t reach out. “Please take it.”

  He listened carefully, hoping to hear the violin or at least Luzi’s voice, but all he heard was a clock ticking inside. “May I see her while I’m here?”

  “Luzia is out for the day.”

  He wrung his hands together. “I would never do anything to harm her. You know that.”

  “You’re a threat, Max, whether or not you want to be. Your . . . persistence draws attention that’s dangerous for all of us in these times.”

  The words stung. “I want nothing but the best for her.”

  “Then you must let her go, at least for this season.”

  Max stumbled back from the door, catching himself on the banister as he tried to process her words. How could he avoid the woman he loved? The woman he would marry, no matter what the Nazis said.

  He’d never actually spoken the words to Luzi, told her of his love, but she must know it. And it seemed that she loved him too. Her smile as they’d danced, it had been spellbinding. He knew during their waltz, just as he knew right now, that he’d never be able to love anyone like he loved her.

  “Go home, Max,” Frau Weiss said. “You’ve been a good friend to us, but for your sake and for ours, we must say good-bye.”

  “Only for a season,” he reminded her.

  “A season . . .” The word trailed off as she shut the door.

  He stared at the light grain of the oak, the flower etched on the beveled glass. He couldn’t fathom a future without Luzi, didn’t want to imagine his life without her. The violin breathed life into her, but to him, she was like the beautiful music that fed her soul. A melody that energized, inspired, and haunted him at the same time.

  Max left the food in the hallway, and a taxi delivered him to the baroque building on Boltzmanngasse, a building that housed both the American General Consulate and the Consular Academy for international students. He’d studied the architecture of this formidable building in school—it was built at the turn of the century in the classical style. Visitors usually waited inside the consulate, but a long line trickled out the front door this afternoon and wrapped around the white plaster wall. Across the street hung a banner at least five feet tall with a Nazi slogan embroidered in black on the cloth.

  Might Comes Before Right!

  As if those who were in power were always right. Or perhaps they meant power was more important than being right.

  Dr. Weiss stood about two meters away from the steps of the consulate, his head bowed and formal coat buttoned as if it were December instead of July. Max had hoped that Luzi might have accompanied him, but most of the people waiting were middle-aged men, probably trying to obtain visas for their entire family.

  Max stepped up beside Dr. Weiss. “Grüss Gott.”

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder with a cane, the voice gravelly. “The queue begins around the corner.”

  Max glanced back at an elderly man. “I’m not here for a visa.”

  “You’ll have a riot on your hands if you walk through the door,” the man said.

  Max inched forward beside Dr. Weiss. “I wanted to speak with you.”

  Dr. Weiss pressed his hands into his pockets, resigned instead of welcoming the conversation. “Talk means nothing these days.”

  “I’m your friend, Herr Doktor, even when others have turned away.”

  “Jawohl, a friend is good, but I think you are only friends with me because of my daughter.”

  “I want to help your entire family.” Max thought of the new Mercedes in the garage under his family’s home, waiting to be used, and he lowered his voice so the other men around them couldn’t hear. “I could drive you to Hungary in our automobile.”

  Dr. Weiss shook his head. “There are checkpoints at every road along the border, and the guards require visas and baptismal certificates to prove that we’re Aryan.”

  And hefty bribes as well, Max suspected.

  Would the guards accept money in lieu of the certificates? There must be a way for them to leave Austria without the mounds of paperwork.

  “You’ll get the visas,” Max insisted. “Today, perhaps.”

  “I’ve filled out all the paperwork. Received all the stamps.”

  Surely Luzi’s invitation to attend school in New York would convince the consul to let the Weiss family emigrate.

  The sun was warm, beating down on them. “Have you been here all day?”

  Dr. Weiss nodded. “I’m doing everything possible . . .”

  “I know,” Max assured. He couldn’t imagine how crippling it must feel to be stuck in a country that didn’t want you there, with no place else to go.

  The door to the consulate opened, and a small man in a suit stepped out. “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” he said. “The consulate is closing for the night.”

  Groans rippled down the line.

  “We’ll reopen at nine.”

  The crowd began to disperse around them. “You have everything—safe?” the doctor asked Max in a whisper.

  Max nodded. “I can try to retrieve your things before you leave.”

  Dr. Weiss shook his head. “The only valuables we’re allowed to bring with us are wedding bands.”

  He slipped something into Max’s hand, but Max didn’t dare look down. He put it into his rucksack instead.

  “I will keep everything safe for you.”

  “Thank you,” Dr. Weiss said before tipping his hat.

  The doctor crossed the street, and then Max saw Luzi, sitting on a bench. She wore a plain yellow blouse and skirt, a small hat pinned over her hair, but there was nothing plain about her, even on a seemingly ordinary day like this one.

  Had she been waiting all day?

  She opened a silver thermos and poured a cup of something warm for her father. Without thinking, Max stepped off the curb, wanting to speak with her, but before he moved closer, the words of Frau Weiss echoed in his mind.

  Was his presence really a threat to Luzi?

  He would never hurt her. And he couldn’t possibly ignore her when she was right in front of him.

  Luzi glanced over her father’s shoulder, met Max’s eye. The slightest nod from her, and then she looked away, but he saw the fear in her eyes.

  Luzi was afraid of him.

  Heart raw, he ducked behind the trunk of an oak tree and watched her walk away as he’d done at the ball, except this time she walked arm in arm with her father. She held her head high, as if she dared anyone to defy them as they walked home, but Dr. Weiss’s head was bowed in defeat.

  Max had to find a way to rescue Luzi and her family before Hitler followed through with his threat to solve what he believed to be a problem. If the Weiss fam
ily didn’t leave Austria soon, it wouldn’t be long, he feared, before it would be too late to help them at all.

  CHAPTER 15

  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. The days pass achingly slowly without a word from Dr. Nemeth about finding Annika and no email from Sophie with the newspaper photograph and caption. I’ve checked my inbox about a hundred times, and not even the bookseller from Idaho has returned my email.

  I climb up on my story-time stool this morning like a red cardinal on a perch ring. Michael is back this week, though he’s refrained so far from blurting out about his underwear, much to the dismay, I imagine, of most of my audience. Several of the kids keep looking his way, but I suspect his mom had a proper talking-to with him before they stepped into the store.

  Devon and his dad have joined us, and while I smile at Devon, I try to avoid Mr. Baker’s gaze. Cracking the cover of a Karma Wilson book, I begin to read her story about a bear who feels scared, but even as I read, a conversation with Devon’s father loops through my mind, preventative measures that sharpen as I carve through the words.

  I’ll tell him that I have another date tonight if he asks me to dinner—technically true since I’m headed over to Brie’s house. And if he asks me if I’m in a relationship, I’ll tell him yes—technically true once again even if it’s not the kind of relationship he’s probably referring to.

  I turn another page.

  “‘Bear trembles in the wind,’” I read. When I pause, the kids shiver with me. “‘How he longs for a friend.’”

  The children shout out the next line in unison. “‘And the bear feels scared!’”

  I nod. “Exactly.”

  Then I read about the other animals who trudge through rain and darkness to find Bear, how they won’t let anything stop them from finding their friend.

  The front door chimes, and I can’t help but glance up, thinking Kathleen might have brought her son again this week. Instead a tall man walks into the store, his presence taking up a sizable amount of space. He’s accompanied by a seven- or eight-year-old girl wearing a sailor dress and white sandals embellished with silver bling, her pale-blonde hair brushed back into a ponytail.