Hidden Among the Stars

by Melanie Dobson

“You would lose your job?”

  “Possibly. If I didn’t bring a team here this summer and write about our findings, he was going to consider someone else for full professor and tenure. It wouldn’t be good for either Ella or me if I lost this position.”

  I hear the doubt in his voice, the wanting to do the right thing but not being certain what was best for his daughter.

  “You take good care of her, Josh.”

  He looks away again, but if nothing else, I want him to know this. “Even the fact that you’re concerned is . . .” What is it? Admirable. Kind. Compassionate. Perhaps his care for her is simply what the word father is supposed to mean.

  “I don’t want her to grow up afraid,” he says, “but now I’m the one scared for her.”

  Fear—I pray it doesn’t plague Ella like it has me. Sometimes it seems like I am afraid of almost everything, including the man right in front of me. “She won’t be afraid, not with you there to tell her that she doesn’t have to worry. That she can leap over every roadblock in her path.”

  “Except when you don’t. Because, sometimes, you won’t.” Dr. Seuss was right on that account, but just this morning, I wish he would stop speaking to me.

  I dip my hand back into the frigid water and fling the droplets away. “If for some reason she can’t leap over those roadblocks, you’ll tell her that you love her no matter what.”

  “Did your father tell you that?” he asks.

  I feel the ice creeping up inside me, no bucket challenge needed. I’ve talked too much, exposed the brokenness of my heart, the pieces that were supposed to be neatly swept under the shell.

  “We’re almost there,” I say.

  Even with the mist, I see the indisputable Kein Durchgang—No Entry—on the dock, but my gaze quickly wanders to the medieval Schloss behind it. Online pictures don’t do the castle justice, at least not with the mist circled around the turrets and hovering over the slate roof. Or perhaps it’s smoke. The smell from a woodstove wafts down the bank.

  A stone retaining wall stretches in front of the main house and the five outbuildings on the estate, the rocks protecting the shoreline but also, I suspect, keeping away unwelcome visitors. Like us.

  Undeterred, Josh motors toward the forest on the east side and pulls his boat up through the tall weeds, beaching it between the pine trees.

  “Wegefreiheit,” he says as he eyes the wall of trees in front of us.

  “What does that word mean?”

  “An Austrian’s universal freedom to roam around.”

  That thought makes me smile. “I suspect that doesn’t apply to private property.”

  “No. Locals are rather strict about keeping tourists off their land.”

  I wrap my arms across my chest. “Then why are we here?”

  “Because it’s the only way to find information about Annika. Now that my dive is done—”

  “We’re still trespassing.”

  “We’ll simply knock,” he says. “Herr Stadler will either invite us into his home or he’ll ask us to leave. We won’t stick around if we’re not welcome.”

  My desire for information wins out over my reluctance. Together we cross through the forest, past the remains of a small house, the wood and stone blackened, the roof caved in. Then the forest breaks into field, and before us are several gardens, ablaze with flowers.

  Someone cares well for this land.

  A barn stands close to the water, a small fortress made of stucco and stone. Inside the doorway is a middle-aged man dressed in brown trousers and a white T-shirt, his graying hair tucked partly under a cap, a milk pail in hand. He doesn’t appear to be very pleased about having guests.

  “This property is private,” he says in German.

  “Ja,” Josh replies. “We are looking for someone who once lived here. Do you speak English?”

  Irritation flares on the man’s face. “This is my home. Not an attraction.”

  “My name is Josh,” he says. “My uncle stayed here in 1945, right after the war ended.”

  “An Allied soldier, I presume?” the man asks with a mixture of German and English.

  Josh nods.

  “Most people here want to forget about the war.”

  “In the United States, we want to remember. So it never happens again.”

  “With the remembering, the stories can get twisted, ja?”

  The man is looking at me now so I answer. “It is our job to unwind them. So we remember the truth.”

  “Even when we do remember, we can’t seem to stop men in our world from killing each other,” the man says, and his English—at least when he is angry—is quite good. He’s at least three decades too young to have fought in World War II, but I wonder if he’s fought in another war. “Why are you in Austria?”

  Josh introduces us properly, shaking his hand as if we are meeting at a dinner party. “I brought some students to dive the lake with me.”

  “Treasure hunting?” the man asks as if it’s an accusation.

  “I’m looking for what the Nazis would have called ownerless treasure.”

  “There’s nothing left to be found in this lake.”

  Josh isn’t ready to be dismissed, especially after he already found a list of names and the silver coins. “My uncle met a woman while he was here who told him about things that were hidden.”

  The man is paying closer attention now. “What was her name?”

  “Annika Stadler.”

  The man swings his pail into his other hand. “Frau Stadler doesn’t live here anymore.”

  My pulse speeds up. “But you know her?”

  “Ja, but the memories here, they are hard.”

  A glance over at Josh and I see the interest pique on his face too. I don’t think either of us truly thought Annika would still be alive.

  “Callie has found a book of Annika’s from her childhood. We thought Frau Stadler might want it returned.”

  “What book is that?” the man asks.

  Josh glances at me.

  “An early edition of Bambi,” I say, carefully guarding my words. “It contains some sort of list.”

  “I will ask her about it. Where are you staying?”

  “At Gasthof Simony,” Josh says.

  “I am Jonas Stadler.”

  “Is Frau Stadler your grandmother?” I ask.

  The man gazes out at the lake, toward the village of Hallstatt. “Do either of you have children?”

  Josh slips his phone out of his jacket pocket, and I glimpse a recent picture of Ella holding her stuffed bunny, sitting in front of a bowl of Cheerios and glass of orange juice. He turns it to show Herr Stadler. “This is my daughter.”

  “She looks like she is full of life.”

  “In abundance.”

  “And you would do anything for your daughter, would you not?” Herr Stadler asks.

  “I’d give my life for her.”

  “I would give my life for my family as well.” The man steps away. “I will contact you at Gasthof Simony if Frau Stadler would like to speak with you.”

  Josh nods. “Fair enough.”

  “Auf Wiedersehen,” Herr Stadler says, tipping his cap.

  We wander back to the boat, the smell of wood smoke wafting through the trees.

  Frau Stadler would be well into her ninth decade of life by now. If she’s willing to speak with us, will she remember what was lost? And where it went? Will she remember the man whose photo she taped in her book or the woman who’d been cut away?

  The clock, I fear, is working against us all.

  CHAPTER 32

  VIENNA, AUSTRIA

  MARCH 1939

  Ernst Schmid spent more than three torturous months in Vienna’s General Hospital, recovering first from his bullet wound and then from the infection that infiltrated his body. He’d heard the doctors whispering when he pretended to sleep, saying the infection would kill him, but he’d conquered it. Just as he would conquer Max Dornbach when he got out of this prison.
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br />   Major Rosch didn’t acknowledge Ernst’s return to the Hotel Metropole, but he cared nothing about recognition. The doctors thought they and their medicines had cured him, but no medicine could cure like the drive of revenge. His focus, sharper than the tip of his knife, killed the infection.

  The Gestapo commander didn’t speak to him, but the other agents whispered as he stepped off the elevator to the upper floor of their headquarters, wondering who had shot him and why. When Major Rosch visited him in the hospital, Ernst had told the man that he didn’t know who wounded him, that he was checking on a complaint about a Jewish family who’d refused to leave their home and someone shot him from behind.

  The office windows overlooked the streetcars and pedestrians and parades of tanks and soldiers that marched up Morzinplatz every day. Life in Vienna was much more ordered now, the things of frivolity in the past. Their Führer was focused on conquering the world, but Ernst wanted to conquer only one man.

  He would find Max Dornbach and make him pay.

  Ernst picked up the telephone on his desk and called the commandants at Dachau and Mauthausen. Dr. Weiss had died at Dachau, but no one could tell him if they’d taken Max to one of the camps. Or where Luzi had gone.

  Next he tried to phone his mother at the house where she worked in Munich, but no one answered. He hadn’t told her that Max tried to kill him, but she would cooperate with any investigation against the Dornbach family.

  When Ernst was younger, his mother hoped each summer that the Dornbachs would extend an invitation for her and Ernst to join their staff at the family estate near Salzburg, but they never did. Instead his mother waited faithfully for them to return, taking in ironing to support herself and her son through those hot summer months.

  They hadn’t been nearly as faithful to her.

  He sent a telegram to Munich.

  Need to find the Dornbach family. What is the name of their summer house?

  Ernst spent the rest of his morning addressing memorandums to commandants across the Third Reich. If they found a man named Max Dornbach from Vienna or a woman named Luzi Weiss, he wanted to know. Then he spent his afternoon visiting the new tenants in the Weiss apartment, the rooms all clean and tidy now.

  They left him alone in their parlor as he tried to replay what happened that night he’d come for Luzi. His expectations had been high—he’d waited so long to have her—and she’d disappointed him. The disappointment he remembered well, but the moments after were a blur.

  Max had shuffled through the door, interrupting him, and Ernst had been livid until it occurred to him that he could have two things he wanted that very night—Luzi and the life of this man who loved her.

  And he would’ve had both if Max hadn’t shot him first.

  Ernst pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to remember. Luzi had distracted him—he hadn’t even seen the gun in Max’s hand. But he remembered the shock of it, the explosion of pain.

  Next he took a taxi to the fancy Stadtpalais off Ringstrasse where Max and his family lived, the small palace where his mother had scrubbed floors until her hands swelled, set silverware for the finest of meals while she was eating leftover schnitzel in the kitchen. The apartment where she’d washed laundry for a family who soiled their clothing like the common man but wouldn’t remove their own dirt.

  The upper floor was vacant, and the neighbor below said that Klara Dornbach was visiting her sister in France. Herr Dornbach had been reassigned to Berlin.

  In the morning, Ernst sent a telegram to Germany, but Herr Dornbach’s short reply was clear. He didn’t know the whereabouts of his son, though he suspected Max had joined Klara in Paris.

  If Max had made it to France, had he taken Luzi with him?

  Ernst riffled through files. The paperwork was a beast of its own, thousands upon thousands of records trying to track who’d left Austria and who’d stayed behind. Luzi, he discovered, had been approved for a visa to America, to attend Juilliard, but the permit had come after Max had shot him. He couldn’t find any record of her leaving Vienna.

  A messenger found him amid the files, delivering a two-word reply from his mother.

  Schloss Schwansee.

  The name of the Dornbach estate.

  Ernst smoothed the yellow paper on his desk. Then he called the headquarters office in Salzburg and asked them to pay a visit to the castle of swans.

  He wouldn’t hurt Max when he found him, at least not at first.

  First he would eliminate what Max prized most.

  CHAPTER 33

  LAKE HALLSTATT, AUSTRIA

  APRIL 1939

  Life grew inside her.

  She hadn’t told Annika about the baby, but while her friend slept, Luzi spent the midnight hours ripping seams from Frau Dornbach’s borrowed clothing to accommodate her growth. She had altered several dresses and a skirt for Annika too, replacing her friend’s worn clothing. Unlike Luzi, Annika grew thinner as the months passed.

  Luzi wanted to hate this baby inside her, the offspring of a man who’d stolen what he had no right to take, but each time she felt the baby move, she clung to a new hope. This child was hers, not Ernst Schmid’s. She would raise him or her in these lakes, far away from the evil in Vienna.

  This castle was her new home. Annika her sister, of sorts.

  The two of them had worked with Hermann to clean up some of what the fire had destroyed, though they’d closed the door to the parlor—it was beyond their ability to repair.

  She whispered quietly to her baby at night, quoting the passages of Scripture she remembered in lieu of a song. But on the days her chest felt as if it were gasping for air, those days she missed her sister and parents so much that she wished her life had been stolen away as well, she’d walk down to the shore and watch the strands of mist linger over the lake.

  A warm foehn blew down from the mountains this morning, bringing with it the damp fog and wreaking havoc on Luzi’s muscles and her mind. She’d already milked the goats, the handle of the tin pail cold in her hands, but she wasn’t ready to return to the castle. Life was a mist of sorts, she decided. It blew between two shores, never really going anywhere, and when the sun came out, the mist disappeared. In the light, everything became clear.

  One day, when the madness ended, she would find Marta and raise her alongside the child growing within her—that hope drove her out of bed each morning, waiting for the sun.

  Passover began today, the celebration of God’s passing over their people and their freedom from oppression in Egypt. Her parents had never celebrated the Jewish holidays, but Luzi’s grandparents remembered each one. Annika wanted to remember these holidays as they waited for Max, to celebrate the God who loved His people.

  But how could she celebrate freedom today when her people were still being oppressed?

  Last December, she and Annika had lit candles for Chanukah, remembering how God had provided to defeat the enemies of the Jewish people. Annika had celebrated God’s miracles with her, and Luzi helped Annika celebrate the birth of her Christ with the turkey Hermann had brought for them and the small tree they’d found in the forest. They’d decorated the pine boughs with ribbons from Frau Dornbach’s bureau, glass balls, and miniature candles.

  On Christmas Day, they’d read from the Dornbachs’ Bible, and Luzi hadn’t stopped reading it since. The New Testament was a story of a Jewish man, a righteous man who claimed to be the Messiah. As she read through the story of His crucifixion, she felt His wounds keenly. And she longed for the freedom He offered, no matter what the people around her took away.

  On her left, Hermann’s motorboat streamed toward the estate, and he waved to her as he approached the boathouse. He joined them more often now, repairing things that were broken or bringing them meat from the fertile hunting grounds.

  Annika had taught her how to fish and milk their goats, and Luzi had taught her how to sew. Annika had also cut Luzi’s hair and bathed it in hydrogen peroxide so she resembled a younger Aryan girl, a resid
ent of these lakes. Together they’d raided the Dornbachs’ library during the winter months and read books that took them far from here.

  For these months, the Nazis had left them mostly alone.

  The Gestapo in the black cars had arrived at the estate last month, searching for Max. Luzi had hid in the space near the library’s fireplace while Annika told them the truth—that she hadn’t seen Max in a long time.

  Annika hadn’t seen him since the day he left Luzi here, but some mornings the two women would wake up and find a note under their door. He didn’t give them much information, only a line or two, but it was enough to know he was safe. Twice he’d come into the house while Annika was asleep. He’d kissed Luzi’s cheek, promised that he would return for her, and then he was gone.

  His love for her never seemed to waver, and she wished with everything inside her that her heart didn’t feel so cold. Empty. As if she had nothing left to give except life to the one person who remained in her care.

  If only Max could see how much Annika adored him. How she would do anything for him. If only he knew that Luzi was as broken and charred as the parlor in his family’s castle.

  Hermann began crossing the bank toward her, and she released arms that had wrapped themselves around her chest.

  Some nights, Hermann would come, and she’d hear him and Annika whispering together. Annika hid whatever was in Hermann’s bags in a plot between the trees, but Luzi harbored their secret for them. Just as they faithfully harbored hers.

  She wanted to control her life, as she’d once controlled the music pouring from her violin, but life wasn’t a neat set of notes, composed by Strauss or Bach. It was much more messy, chaotic, like an orchestra tuning their instruments before the concert began.

  Oh, she craved a concert. Musicians working together to create something beautiful that brought joy to the listeners, not something ugly to tear people apart.

  Waiting was all she had now.

  Waiting until she could find Marta.

  Waiting until someone stopped Hitler.

  Waiting the four months until her baby was born.