The Edelweiss Sisters: An epic, heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel

by Kate Hewitt

  Lotte stared at her dumbly, this former postulant who had, in her mind, obtained a certain revered status—married to a baron, mother to nine children, and esteemed leader of the von Trapp Family Singers. Lotte had heard them on the radio several times already.

  Maria von Trapp’s gaze was friendly but disconcertingly direct as she stared back at Lotte. “Hello,” she said. “Do I know you?”

  “No—no,” Lotte stammered, “that is—we have never met. But we both sung in a competition several years ago, at the Elektrischer Aufzug. Of course you won’t remember us—my sisters and I, that is. We sung in a trio, “Die Lorelei…”

  Maria’s expression clouded for a moment, and then cleared, her whole countenance brightening. “Ah yes, the Edelweiss Sisters!” She laughed, a merry sound, and Lotte gaped at her in surprise.

  “But… how did you know?” Only her father had called them that, his teasing term of endearment.

  “No, no, I know that is not your name,” Maria assured her with another laugh. “It was the Eder Sisters Trio, was it not? But you all wore sprigs of edelweiss in your dirndls, as I recall. So pretty.”

  “Yes, that is right.” Lotte, like her sisters, had kept the sprigs of edelweiss as her father had asked, pressing them between the pages of the family Bible. “I am amazed you remember us, Baroness von Trapp. We were most forgettable, I thought.”

  “Not at all. You were very charming. I recall talking to you all. I remember that, although I can’t actually remember the songs we sung. Those were a blur! But what are you doing up here at the abbey?”

  “I just came to visit. It’s so quiet and peaceful.” Lotte could not keep from giving the chapel a longing glance. “I could stay up here forever, I think.”

  “Could you?” Maria replied, tilting her head in speculation, her dark eyes as bright as a bird’s. She was not a beautiful woman, but there was something alive and vital about her, a bristling, energetic alertness that made her striking. “I once thought the same, but God had other plans for me! And now I am bringing my daughter, my little Lorli, to school here.” She glanced down tenderly at the solemn-faced little girl standing silently next to her. “It is a great joy to me to do so.”

  “I’m sure,” Lotte murmured. She smiled at the girl who smiled uncertainly back as she leaned into her mother. “If I could spend all my days here, I surely would,” Lotte declared, her tone holding more heartfelt conviction than she’d meant to reveal.

  “Perhaps you have a vocation?” Maria suggested, with that same unsettling directness. Lotte thought she meant to joke, but when she saw the seriousness of the other woman’s expression she realized she wasn’t.

  “Oh… I don’t…”

  “You are Catholic?”

  “Yes, my family attends St. Blasius.”

  “Well then? God’s call can be but a whisper, but it is certainly distinct and once heard, impossible to ignore. I heard it when I was about your age, and came here as a postulant. Those were some of the happiest days of my life, although of course I am now happiest settled in my home.” She glanced again at her daughter, her expression suffused with love.

  “Yes, I had heard of your time here,” Lotte replied stiltedly, her mind spinning at the thought of even hearing—never mind heeding—such a call herself.

  “It is a great privilege, to dedicate all to the Lord’s service. It was all I wanted, you know. I was quite, quite distressed when the Mother Abbess told me it was God’s will for me to marry my husband, Captain von Trapp.”

  “You were?” Somehow this surprised Lotte, when she thought of all Maria had gained—the grand house in Aigen, a life of ease, the love of a good man and her own children. And yet to stay here, wrapped in this solitude and silence…

  “Yes, I was,” Maria replied seriously. “But one must always heed God’s call, whether it takes you into the comfort of the cloister, or the wildness of the world beyond. I hope for your sake, Fraülein Eder, that you listen to whatever it is.” She reached out and grasped Lotte’s hand, giving her a smile of solidarity, before she ushered her daughter forward and went out into the misting drizzle with her.

  The prayers of the nuns had finished, so all was silent as Lotte walked slowly from the courtyard and back down the steep and narrow Nonnbergstiege. As she came down the last of the steps, the clamor and clatter of the city assaulted her senses—the guffaw of a passerby, the squeak and squeal of a tram, the slam of a door, the shout of a peddler. She had an urge to sprint up the steps she’d just come down and hide away in the safety of the chapel forever, removed and protected.

  But no. She had enough to answer for already; she had missed an entire afternoon of classes, and she would have to tell her parents of it. The thought of her mother’s disapproval, and worse, far worse, her father’s gentle disappointment, was enough for the last of that oft-sought contentment to drain away.

  “Once heard, it is impossible to ignore.” Lotte recalled Maria von Trapp’s words and hoped she was right. If she did indeed hear such a call, surely she would have no choice but to follow it.

  Chapter Five

  Johanna

  November 1936

  Franz Weber had been living at the house on Getreidegasse for over a month when he suggested the hike up the Untersberg that Manfred had promised right at the beginning of his stay. Although it had been, technically, her father’s idea, Johanna recognized at once that it was truly Franz’s. In the weeks since he’d been apprenticed to her father, Johanna had often observed him—discreetly, of course—and she’d both seen and felt the force of his personality, laughing charm combined with steely determination. She could not help but find him fascinating.

  Franz spent his days down in the shop, but he, Manfred, and Birgit all came upstairs for the midday meal, which Hedwig and Johanna prepared and served. Johanna brought their coffee down in the afternoon, and then Franz spent the evenings with the family—first supper and prayers, and then a few hours in the sitting room, listening to the radio or reading, perhaps playing music.

  Only a few days after he’d arrived he’d sat down at their piano and played the first few lilting bars of a Mozart sonata.

  “How well you play!” Manfred had exclaimed, pleased, and Franz had laughed and spun around on the stool.

  “Everyone in Vienna must play an instrument,” he told him with an expansive shrug. “Music and theatre are far more important than politics there.”

  “Then it must be a happy place indeed,” Manfred had replied.

  “It was,” Franz answered with a disconcertingly dark emphasis, before he gave them all a laughing look. “But I thought Mozart was appropriate, considering this is his city.”

  “Indeed, his birthplace is only a few doors down from here,” Manfred agreed with a smiling nod. “But you have teased us with just a few bars! Play the whole sonata, if you can.”

  And so Franz had, his long fingers rippling over the keys as the room filled with the mellifluous sound of Mozart. Soon, at her father’s bidding, Johanna and her sisters began to sing along to Franz’s accompaniment, teaching him some old folk songs.

  Despite the dull competency of her voice, Johanna had enjoyed those evenings, standing next to Franz as he played. He had asked her to turn the pages of his music, which she’d been more than happy to do, although Birgit had given her a fulminating look when she’d acquiesced to his request. Although her sister acted as if she despised Franz Weber, Johanna wondered if she secretly admired him.

  For surely there was much to admire in such a man, in both his looks and temperament. He had a craggy, expressive face and eyes the color of the mahogany in their sitting room when it was well polished. His body was tall and rangy, his shoulders slightly stooped from a lifetime, no doubt, of ducking under doorways.

  But more admirable than his looks, Johanna thought, was his sense of vitality; he crackled with energy, bristled with interest, always looking about himself with an alertness that felt electric—it made her feel alive, simply being near h
im.

  When Franz was in a room, she couldn’t help but edge closer, and her gaze continued to stray to his face, roaming over its expressive features, the snapping eyes and slightly crooked nose, as if attempting to memorize them. He fascinated her—like she had never been fascinated by anything or anyone before.

  And, she was beginning to dare to think, she interested him. She could not imagine she was as fascinating to Franz as he was to her, but she did notice the way he would engage her in conversation over the dinner table, or linger for a few moments in the afternoon when she and her mother were clearing the cups away.

  Once, as she’d been leaving for the market, he’d risen from his bench in the shop and asked her if he could accompany her.

  “I must buy some notepaper and envelopes to write my family,” he’d told her. “Do you mind if I come along?”

  “I—no, of course not,” Johanna had stammered, already disconcerted by the nearness of his presence, the way he threw his scarf around his neck, his eyes glinting as he smiled at her. He looked as if everything amused and interested him, even her.

  Outside the air had possessed a chill, and the sky was the color of slate. Johanna had walked rather primly along, a wicker basket over one arm.

  “You look like the goose girl in the fairy tale,” he’d told her, and she started in surprise.

  “The goose girl!”

  “Do you know the story?”

  “Yes, a bit.” She recalled reading it in a book of fairy tales, how a princess was tricked by her evil servant and forced to become a servant herself. Eventually, Johanna recalled, she was discovered and married the king of a neighboring country.

  “She had golden hair like yours,” Franz had said, and then he’d dared, laughingly, to touch the coil of braid twisted around her head. “If you combed it out, you’d just be like her.”

  “I don’t know whether I wish to be like the goose girl,” Johanna had replied. She was both shaken and thrilled by his gentle forwardness; he was flirting with her, and she did not know how to flirt.

  “She is vindicated in the end,” Franz had reminded her. “And she marries the king. Wouldn’t you like that?”

  “To marry a king?” she’d replied with some of her usual spirit. “It depends on what sort of man he was.”

  “A very good answer,” Franz had approved, and she’d looked at him with her eyebrows raised, determined for him not to realize how much she cared for his opinion.

  “Oh, do you think so?” she’d said with a touch of sarcasm, and he’d just laughed.

  In the market square he’d bought his paper and envelopes, and then he’d insisted on carrying her basket as she went around the Grünmarkt in Universitätsplatz, inspecting potatoes and onions, feeling strangely like a wife, although she’d supposed she could not even begin to know what that felt like.

  When they’d returned to the house on Getreidegasse, he’d brushed her fingers with his own. “Thank you for the company,” he’d said simply, and Johanna had only been able to nod.

  Now, over a month into Franz’s apprenticeship, they were all hiking up the Untersberg. He had asked Johanna about the hike one afternoon when she’d brought him coffee as usual, his fingers brushing hers as she’d handed him his cup. But although she dared to think he’d meant the invitation for her alone, her father had taken it up gladly.

  “Yes, yes, we must all go, before it gets too cold! Hedwig will pack a picnic. What a splendid idea, Franz. Isn’t it, Johanna?”

  Franz had given her a wry look that Johanna thought she could interpret, and she’d blushed as she’d answered, her gaze on Franz, rather than her father.

  “Yes, Papa, indeed it is.”

  They set off from the nearby village of Grodig gamely enough, her father using the old, knobbled walking stick he’d had when he’d met his wife herding goats, Birgit walking faithfully alongside him. Lotte had fallen into step with their mother, and had taken the picnic basket before Franz offered, with a funny little bow, to carry it himself.

  Johanna let herself fall behind the others, knowing with a feminine intuition she hadn’t realized she’d possessed that Franz would fall in step with her, so they lagged a fair distance behind her family.

  “A beautiful day, is it not?” Franz asked as he gave her a sideways, smiling glance.

  “Indeed it is.” Already she felt her cheeks warm. “What do you think to the mountains, Herr Weber?”

  “Surely by now you can call me Franz?”

  “Franz,” Johanna agreed, willing her blush to fade. She felt like a simpering schoolgirl, and yet at the same time an aging spinster. She did not know which she was, and she could not bear the thought that she might be made to look ridiculous.

  “I think they take my breath away.” But he was looking at her as he said it, and that made Johanna blush even more hotly. Was he teasing her, or did he mean what he’d said? She feared trusting his kindness, the warm admiration she saw so often in his eyes, and yet she longed to do just that.

  “Legend says Charlemagne himself is hiding in the caves on Untersberg,” she remarked, desperate to think of something clever to say. “Waiting to return to battle the Antichrist.”

  “Then I hope he makes an appearance soon,” Franz returned dryly, “for the Antichrist has surely already arrived.”

  “You mean Hitler?”

  “Of course.”

  “You know many Salzburgers admire him,” Johanna remarked hesitantly. “Many Austrians, even. The papers are full of it.” Only last week the headline of the Salzburger Volksblatt had been about the “Pride of Deutschland,” and then of course there was the whole matter of the Jews.

  “Yes, I know,” Franz said, his tone both heavy and bitter as his gaze rested on the distant peaks. “Vienna was the same, if not worse. Sometimes it feels as if the whole world is going mad.”

  “Is that why you left?”

  He gave her a quick, searching look. “Did your father not tell you?”

  She shook her head. “No, he said nothing of why you came.”

  He paused, as if he would say something more, and then he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Birgit says you don’t know the first thing about clocks,” Johanna remarked impulsively, and Franz laughed. “Is it true?”

  “It was. I have learned something about them in the last few weeks, I hope.” He turned his smiling glance once more upon her, his good humor fully restored as he gave her a look that felt both teasing and intimate. “But what about you, Johanna? What do you wish to do with your life?”

  “Do?”

  “You do not wish to repair clocks, I think.”

  “I haven’t the head for it. But no, I never did.”

  “Then what?”

  She shrugged, discomfited by his question, the possibilities it opened inside her. “I had been hoping to take a secretarial course,” she said after a moment. “But it wasn’t possible.”

  “A secretarial course!” Franz sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, so I could work in an office.”

  “Typing the dull correspondence of stuffy businessmen? That would be a life wasted, indeed.”

  “I didn’t think so,” she replied, a little insulted, and he laughed and reached for her hand.

  Johanna let him take it, a frisson of awareness traveling all the way up her arm as Franz swung her arm in his as they walked. Even though both their hands were gloved she could feel the warmth of his skin through the wool, and it electrified her.

  “I mean, what do you want to do?” Franz said. “Not something pedestrian or pedantic. Something real. What dreams do you have? Do you want to travel? See the world? Go to university? Ride a camel?”

  “Ride a camel?” Johanna repeated as laughter bubbled up inside her. “Certainly not.”

  “What, then?” He turned to her with a look of sudden, burning intensity; he was still holding her hand. Johanna’s mouth went dry as her heart beat wildly. She knew then what she wanted, yet she could har
dly say it to Franz. I want you to always look at me like that, to hold my hand, to kiss me…

  “I… I don’t know.”

  “Not allowed,” Franz declared with a determined shake of his head and a squeeze of her hand. “You have to think of something.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Paris,” she said finally. “To see the Eiffel Tower. My father has a postcard of it, and it looks so modern. He went there when he was young, before he married Mama.”

  “Paris,” Franz repeated musingly. “Paris it is, then.”

  She laughed in disbelief at how definitive he sounded. “Are you going to wave your magic wand, then, and have me whisked away?”

  “I don’t have a magic wand, most unfortunately, but one day we’ll go to Paris. I promise.”

  She shook her head, embarrassed now at his certain tone as well as his use of the word “we.”

  They’d slowed their steps until they were standing still, at a vantage point overlooking the village now far below them, the world spread out in densely green, undulating waves, the ragged peaks of the snow-capped mountains fringing the bright horizon.

  “I must seem very provincial to you,” Johanna said after a moment, although it hurt her pride to admit as much. “My father said you had a degree from the University of Vienna, and with all your talk of theatre and music, philosophy and mathematics…” She bit her lip, feeling compelled to point out what was undoubtedly all too apparent. “I’ve hardly read any books, and the only play I’ve seen is Jedermann at the festival, and then only because they perform it for free, in the square.” She turned to him with a frank, challenging look. “I didn’t think much of it, to be honest. So much fuss over a story of an ordinary man.”

  Franz let out a shout of laughter and tugged her by the hand, pulling her closer towards him. “But that is exactly why I like you, Johanna,” he told her as his gaze turned kind, even tender. “The Viennese are such snobs about their music and their theatre. They think they’re so cultured, so very sophisticated, but really they’re quite, quite dull.”