by Kate Hewitt
The bell on the door jangled and she looked up, her heart beating fast at the sight of Werner striding into the café, looking jaunty in his uniform—a short-brimmed Bergmutz, or mountain cap, and a reversible Windbluse worn over his gray field uniform. On the first of April, the Sixth Division of the Austrian Bundesheer’s Alpine corps had been incorporated into the First and Second Gebirsgjäger, or Mountain Division, of the Wehrmacht, just as Ingrid had once predicted.
“Birgit, engel!” He kissed her cheek before he threw himself into the chair opposite, his legs sprawled out as he took off his cap. “I’m sorry I’m late. It’s a miracle I managed to get here at all.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You’ve already ordered?” He raised one hand imperiously for the waiter. “Another mélange, and be quick about it!” The waiter gave a short bow before scurrying away, and Werner turned back to Birgit with a smile that felt a little too sure. This swaggering air of brash confidence was something that had emerged since he’d been selected for the First Gebirsgjäger, although admittedly he’d always seemed assured. She’d once liked that about him.
Now, however, there was a hard edge to that assurance, a steely arrogance that Birgit did her best to ignore. She fiddled with her napkin as she managed a smile, nervous in his presence, half with fluttery excitement and half with deep apprehension. She didn’t know this version of Werner any more, and he didn’t know the true Birgit. She did not want him to discover her, either.
It had all started back in April, after Austria had fallen to the Nazis without much of a murmur, never mind a fight. Werner had come to see her after a rally in Residenzplatz where his unit had marched with so many others and, so the newspapers reported, Hitler himself had ridden through the city in an open-topped car, his arm sent straight out, his expression one of hard-eyed nobility, as the crowds cheered themselves hoarse.
Birgit and her family had stayed inside with the curtains drawn, the mood somber. Franz had played the piano, but it had been a melancholy tune that felt like a dirge. No one had spoken.
Immediately after the Anschluss her father had made it clear that no one in his household would be participating in any marches, rallies, parades, or other Nazi events—not that anyone wanted to. No one, he had stated flatly, would assist this new regime in any way, no matter how small. Birgit, who had continued to attend the meetings at the coffeehouse, was in complete agreement—and yet the prospect of outward defiance still terrified her.
Two days after the Wehrmacht had rolled into Austria, her father’s edict was put to the test when two gangly boys in Hitler Youth uniforms knocked on the door of the shop in Getreidegasse demanding to know why their home and business did not sport a swastika banner like every other in the street.
“I’m afraid we do not possess one,” Manfred had replied, his tone genial although his stare was steely. The HJ boys topped him by well over six inches but he stood straight and met their gazes directly. “And in these hard times, as you must know, schillings are dear—”
“You mean Reichsmarks,” one of the teens had corrected him, and Manfred had smiled and nodded.
“Ah, yes, of course. It is so hard to remember all the changes.”
“Perhaps you should try harder.”
Her father bowed his head and said nothing. Birgit had not thought he was afraid of these spotty teenagers, but he’d certainly recognized their newfound power.
“The next time we come,” the other one had told him, poking her father in the chest with his forefinger, “there had better be a banner. Otherwise we’ll have to report you.”
Her father had not replied, and finally the two boys had left. After he’d closed the door, everyone had stood there in a somber silence that seemed to echo through the rooms.
“What will you do, Papa?” Johanna had finally asked, and their father had not replied for several long seconds. His face had been drawn in thoughtful lines, his hand still resting on the knob of the door.
“I must think on it,” he’d said at last. “Think and pray.”
“It’s just a banner,” Hedwig had burst out, sounding angry when Birgit suspected she was only frightened, as they all were. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Franz had looked as if he wanted to say something sharp in return, but he’d simply pressed his lips together. Birgit had known he’d not left the shop once since the day of the Anschluss. Whenever a customer came into the shop, he went upstairs. Several times they had been visited by officials, for various collections or to be given a list of new regulations, and each time Franz had, to Johanna’s pleading and his own quiet fury, hidden in the crawl space under the eaves. Birgit wondered how long any of it could go on.
As for the banner… while Manfred had continued to deliberate, Johanna had returned with one rolled up under her arm after school one day, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glittering.
“We are not going to lose our lives for the sake of a symbol,” she’d stated, and hung it out of the sitting room window. Their father had not said anything, but neither had he asked her to take it down. Birgit saw how troubled he looked, his eyes drooping as his mouth curved downwards, and she wondered how many situations they would find themselves in when their consciences could neither be contained nor consoled.
And what of Werner? She looked at him covertly as he sipped the coffee that the waiter had hurriedly delivered; a Wehrmacht uniform guaranteed good service, along with a cringing servility. Eight months ago he’d come to the house on Getreidegasse after the rally, and Birgit had hurried outside to meet him, knowing it would be a disaster for her family to see him in his new uniform, never mind if any of them actually talked of politics again.
“You’re in the Wehrmacht,” she’d said numbly as she gazed at him in his unrelieved gray. She’d known it would happen, had realized it ever since troops had marched jubilantly across the Staatsbrücke over three weeks earlier. She’d told herself it didn’t mean Werner was actually a Nazi. It was just a uniform, the same as it was just a banner, and yet already she feared she couldn’t trust him.
“First Gebirgsjäger,” Werner had confirmed proudly. “We’re still out of Innsbruck, but there’s talk of being deployed soon.” He’d sounded excited. Birgit had felt only despair. “Aren’t you going to tell me I look handsome?” he’d teased.
“You do,” she’d admitted reluctantly, but her heart felt like a stone inside her, weighing her down. “Werner… is this… is this really what you want?”
Impatience battled with uncertainty in his face for a mere second before he gave her one of his easy smiles. “I don’t have much choice, do I, but even if I did—I want to be on the winning side, Birgit. And it’s obvious that’s going to be Germany. Did you see the newsreels? When the Wehrmacht came into Austria, they were greeted with cheers and flowers. Flowers.” He took a step towards her, his tone turning urgent. Can’t you see this isn’t just what I want, it’s what everyone wants? It’s good for the country—”
“Not for everyone,” Birgit had said quietly, and he’d let out a short, frustrated sigh.
“Not this again. You’d think you were Jewish yourself, the way you go on.”
“You don’t have to be Jewish to care about what happens to Jews,” Birgit had returned. “And in any case, it’s not just about the Jews. It’s everything. Since it happened, everyone’s been frightened. Arrests, imprisonments…” She had stared at him helplessly, knowing he would refuse to understand. “It feels as if anything could happen. No one is safe.”
Werner had rolled his eyes. “You’re safe if you obey the law.”
“Are you? All it takes is for a neighbor to suspect something to report you, and then you could be arrested, without so much as a—”
“And what would there be to suspect?” He had cocked his head as his eyes narrowed in a way that had chilled Birgit right through. She’d realized in that moment she couldn’t talk to Werner honestly; she couldn’t explain her concerns, her fears—the anx
iety gnawed away at her insides until she felt like a hollowed-out shell. She certainly couldn’t tell him about her meetings at the coffeehouse, or the fact that Ingrid and the others were urging them to take more action. “It can’t be just rhetoric and pamphlets any more,” Ingrid had said the last time they’d met, pounding her fist on the table.
No, she couldn’t tell Werner any of that because he could be that nosy neighbor, that suspicious soldier. He had become a threat, even as she loved him.
For she’d known she still did love him, longed for the future together she’d begun to imagine, no matter that he’d stood there right in front of her in his Wehrmacht uniform and talked of suspicion and law. The realization had swamped her with a despair she did her best to fight, because she longed for it to be simple. Who cared what happened in the world around them, as long as they had each other? Yet as much as she’d told herself that, whispered it like a promise, she had not been able to quite make herself believe it.
“What is it?” Werner asked as he sipped his coffee, startling her out of her thoughts. “You’re looking rather dour.”
“It’s hard not to be,” Birgit could not keep from responding. Everything in Salzburg felt either dour or fraught. Salzburg was shrouded in the seasonal Schnürleregen, soldiers swarmed every square, and more and more people were disappearing—not just Jews, but communists, socialists, gypsies—anyone who was different.
The meetings at the coffeehouse had stopped months ago, as it was far too dangerous to gather, and Ingrid had told Birgit she would contact her if she were needed. So far she had heard nothing, and Birgit did not know whether she was disappointed or relieved. She wanted to do something, but she was so very frightened.
Only last week all Jews with Polish heritage had been rounded up and sent east—where, Birgit didn’t know and refused to imagine. All Jews had had to surrender any property, as well as have a J stamped in their passport, for Juden. Franz, who continued to spend most of his time in the attic of the house on Getreidegasse, never leaving the house and now venturing only into the shop cautiously, at least had not had to suffer such indignities. For the purposes of the new government, he remained invisible.
Werner’s mouth thinned as he put down his coffee cup. “Birgit, everything is so much better now. Why can’t you see that? People have jobs. Money. They feel safe—”
“Safe,” Birgit repeated with a hollow laugh. “Werner, how can you even say that? You must know it isn’t true.”
“Like I’ve said before, if you obey the law, you have nothing to fear.”
She leaned forward. “Do you really believe that?” she demanded in a low voice. She didn’t want to have to ask, to force another fraught issue, but neither could she keep herself from it. She could not close her eyes and ears to everything, though it cost her.
For a millisecond, no more, something akin to doubt flitted across Werner’s face like a shadow. It gave her a wild sense of hope that was quickly extinguished as he sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“Is your father’s business doing well?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer.
“Ye-es,” Birgit admitted. Since the Anschluss she and her father had had a steady stream of high-ranking Nazi officers eager to repair the clocks in the villas and estates they’d requisitioned from wealthy Jews who had since been either arrested or moved into virtual ghettoes. One such clock had been badly smashed, and her father had regarded it silently, making no comment as he set about the difficult repair.
“Then what is there to complain about?” Werner asked, as if the answer were obvious. Nothing.
Birgit didn’t reply, merely sipping her coffee as she struggled to keep her expression neutral. Just because her own life was comfortable didn’t mean there weren’t things worth fighting for. The fact that Werner refused to see that made her both angry and despairing, yet she knew better than to pick an argument with him over it.
“Why don’t we go to the cinema?” Werner suggested as he finished his coffee. “By A Silken Thread is playing. Have you seen it?”
“No, I haven’t.” The film, she suspected from what she’d read about it in the papers, was badly disguised Nazi propaganda, highlighting “crooked Jewish capitalists.” She had no desire to see it.
“Then let’s go.” Werner rose from his seat, snapping his fingers for the bill. The waiter hurried over. Werner carelessly tossed a few bills on the table without even looking at the man. Smiling rather shamefacedly at the waiter in apology, Birgit followed Werner outside.
As soon as they stepped out into the damp November evening, it was clear something was happening, although Birgit wasn’t sure what. She pulled her coat more tightly around her and stepped instinctively closer to Werner, who put his arm around her as they glanced about in the gathering dusk.
“What’s going on?” she asked uncertainly. People were hurrying here and there, heads ducked low, and across the street she could see a gang of brown shirts gathered around a shopfront. Birgit heard jeering and the sound of breaking glass.
She glanced at Werner, whose face had hardened. “Let’s just go to the cinema,” he said.
“What’s going on?” she asked again.
“Do you really want to know?” He reached for her arm, but she pulled away from him and started walking towards the gathering crowd. There were just as many bystanders as brown shirts in the throng, and they were all surrounding a shopfront on the other side of the square, an ugly feeling of menace in the air.
It was a doctor’s office, one of the few Jewish-owned businesses that had survived the Anschluss, although only Jews could attend the surgery. The plate-glass window had had a brick thrown through it and a brown shirt had collared the owner, who was trying his best not to cower as the man grabbed him, although his body trembled and his eyes were glassy with fear.
“Let’s see what the good doctor has to say!” the brown shirt declared as he shook him like a rat. “Can he make a diagnosis? What’s wrong with this dirty Jew?” Without so much as drawing a breath the man backhanded his quarry so hard the man’s head whipped around and he fell to his knees on the hard pavement, blood trickling from his nose.
“What do you think is wrong with you, Jew?” the brown shirt demanded, following the backhand with a hard, booted kick to the stomach. The man groaned and rolled on to his side, clutching his middle. A few people jeered, while others laughed. Birgit pressed one hand to her mouth, bile rising in her throat as her stomach churned. How could people be so wantonly evil? This man had done nothing, nothing to anyone here, and yet she saw expressions of rabid glee on people’s faces. They were enjoying this disgusting show. She caught the eye of one woman who looked away quickly. Was that the closest she could feel to shame?
“Come on, Birgit.” Werner reached for her arm once more. “You don’t want to see this. The film is starting soon. We’ll miss the newsreel—”
“The film?” She whirled on him, incredulous, a sob caught in her chest. “That’s what you care about now?”
Werner pressed his lips together. “You don’t need to see this.”
The brown shirts had at last left the poor doctor alone, having moved onto other prey down the street—a father and son who were now surrounded by a jeering crowd, the father’s arm around his son’s slight shoulders. A sound escaped Birgit, something between a sob and a cry. As she slowly looked around the square, she realized this hadn’t been an isolated incident.
It was happening everywhere up and down the street, throughout the whole city perhaps—shops being broken into, people being attacked, brown shirts roaming the pavements, looking for someone to hurt or harass. The air was full of shouts and cries, fury and fear, like the world had gone deliberately mad. It was as if, she realized, it had all been planned.
“Werner, what’s going on?” she choked out. “Why is this happening now?” An uneasy look of guilt flashed across his face before he shrugged. Birgit stepped closer to him. “Did you know about this?”
“I might have heard something,” he admitted, “but I didn’t know what exactly. I swear, Birgit! And do you think there’s anything I could have done? I told you before, I don’t hate the Jews.” His face settled into truculent lines, so at odds with the terrible violence being enacted all around them. He was like a little boy stomping his feet while the whole world burned. “This isn’t my fault,” he insisted. “You don’t have to blame me.”
Birgit just shook her head. The man’s wife had hurried over to him, helping him back into the shop. Birgit started forward, wanting to offer her aid, but realizing she might only make matters worse for them. Then she thought of Franz. “I have to get home,” she told Werner.
“The cinema—”
“I don’t care about the cinema!” she shouted. She looked at him, standing so tall in his Gebirgsjager uniform, and she remembered how he’d first rescued her, how they’d kissed on the bridge, his letters full of dull news and yet she’d still treasured every word… She took a step towards him as her voice gentled, “Werner, can’t you see… this isn’t…”
He held up his hand to keep her from saying anything more. “Let me at least escort you home,” he said stiffly, and she nodded. All around them the world had shattered, and even this, between them, was broken.
They didn’t speak all the way back to Getreidegasse, dodging angry crowds and broken glass. As they turned onto the street, Birgit stilled.
“Something is burning—”
“Most likely the synagogue on Judengasse,” Werner replied, and she looked at him.
“Did you know—”
He hunched one shoulder. “Isn’t it obvious?”
By the time they’d got back to the shop, Birgit was practically twitching with anxiety. Werner caught her sleeve as she hurried to the side door; the front door was locked, the blinds drawn.
“Birgit—what about us?”