Chapter One #2
Ever since Birgit had left the convent school at seventeen they had worked side by side in the shop; of his three children she alone showed interest in the intricate mechanics of a clock, the coils and springs and gears that together were able to mark time.
He only wished she could find a way to be truly settled in herself, with a purpose that was perhaps far from their little shop.
Johanna walked alongside Hedwig; save for his wife’s graying hair they could have been sisters, so clearly were they cut from the same durable cloth. His hope for Johanna was that she might find something to soften her; love, perhaps, as it had done her mother.
As for Lotte, his laughing, lovely youngest daughter? She was as light on her toes as a ballet dancer, tilting her face to the sky without a care, arms flung out as she reveled in life’s simple pleasures. What could Lotte possibly need? Manfred smiled just to look at her.
There was so much to be thankful for, on a day like this—when the air was as crisp and clear as water, and the sky was a deep cerulean blue that hurt your eyes to look at it, and yet still you did, drinking in the color along with the air, as well as the mountains.
Who could fail to gasp or at least murmur a hushed “wunderbar” at the beauty of the mountains that ringed Salzburg, the crown of glory that had kept her protected for a thousand years and more?
It was a day for reveling and remembering the good things, for there had been far too much uncertainty across Austria in recent months—the uprising in February between fascists and socialists that had led to hundreds of deaths, and then in May a bomb had exploded in the Festival Theatre right here in Salzburg.
In July the chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss had been assassinated by Austrian Nazis in an attempted coup, which had thankfully been suppressed in a matter of hours.
Such uncertainty made every day precious.
The family turned onto the Hofstallgasse, joining even more people heading towards Festspielhaus where the festival’s major performances would take place—Bruno Walter conducting Mozart’s Don Giovanni as well as the eminent Arturo Toscanini’s debut.
Another few minutes and they finally arrived at the Elektrischer Aufzug, an impressive edifice of timber and stone, with views encompassing the old town as well as Salzburg’s ancient fortress perched above the city.
Lotte exclaimed over the lift that sent them soaring upwards while Hedwig could not keep from frowning and clutching at the sides.
The restaurant itself was paneled in wood and inset with mirrors, so it seemed much bigger than it was, the tables removed so more chairs could fit, and nearly every one of them was already filled.
“I did not expect so many people,” Hedwig murmured in dismay, and Manfred gave her a comforting smile.
“It is good they are here. An audience is important.”
She watched helplessly as her daughters were shepherded towards the makeshift stage by someone who seemed important; smiling, Manfred put his arm around her and led her to the seats that had been reserved for them, close to the front.
“Where are they going?”
“Backstage, to get ready. Don’t worry. They’re excited!” He squeezed her arm, his expression one of fond amusement, while Hedwig looked uneasily about.
The restaurant was filling up, the air buzzing with conversation and laughter as everyone chatted and studied their programs. Hedwig glanced at the sheet Manfred had given her, and the sight of The Eder Sisters Trio halfway down the page gave her a sensation like vertigo, a tipping over, as if everything were sliding, and she did not know how to right herself.
Manfred put a hand on her arm. “It’s about to begin.”
And so it was. They listened in silence to several acts, applauding as necessary, impressed by the voices of even the most obvious amateurs.
As the competition was sponsored by the Association for National Costumes, everyone was in traditional dress, singing folk songs, and Hedwig felt herself relax.
She knew many of the songs, and the clothes, when not worn by cosmopolitan Viennese, felt familiar and friendly. She began to enjoy herself.
And then their daughters came on the stage—three lovely young women in dirndls and checked aprons, with bright hair and rosy cheeks, and Hedwig felt as if she were looking at them with new eyes.
Johanna, so tall and strong, twenty years old and such a hard worker; Birgit, who could look so friendly when she stood up straight and met people’s gazes; and Lotte, lovely Lotte, only sixteen, with skin like dew and eyes as blue as the sky above, longing only to please and entertain, seeming almost of another world. Who could fail to love Lotte?
And then their voices—so sweet and lovely, soaring above, the harmonies twining together, the sound of innocence, of purity.
Surely everyone was as moved as she was.
Hedwig’s heart beat painfully with love and she glanced at Manfred with a fierce look of pride and joy.
He smiled back so tenderly that her eyes stung.
“Aren’t we lucky?” he murmured as he took her hand in his. “Aren’t we blessed?”
Hedwig could only nod.
The Eder Sisters did not win; they did not even take a prize, but none of them minded that.
It was enough that they had sung at all, and at the end of the competition it seemed all anyone could talk of was the surprise late entry to the event, the von Trapp Family Singers, who had amazed the audience with their complex harmonies, as well as performing as an entire family—not merely three daughters, but nine children, and the mother as well! Even Hedwig had been impressed.
“Maria von Trapp used to be a nun at Nonnberg Abbey,” Lotte remarked dreamily as they walked back to the house on Getreidegasse through a violet twilight, the air as soft as silk, a balmy caress on their heated skin.
Festivalgoers had returned to their houses and hotels to change into evening dress to spend the rest of the night at the city’s finest restaurants or supper clubs, and the streets had, for the moment, emptied out.
“And then she was sent to the von Trapps as a governess to one of the children—there were seven then—who was ill. She ended up marrying their father, who is a baron,” Lotte continued. “Isn’t that romantic?”
“It is not very sensible,” Hedwig replied with her usual bluntness.
“What does a nun know of children? And what of her vows?” Hedwig had grown up with a faith as solid and immovable as her husband’s; there was not a Sunday in her life where she had missed attending mass, or an evening where she had not said the rosary on her knees before bed.
“She was only a postulant, not a full nun or even a novice,” Johanna replied, with a look for Lotte that was both fond and a bit reproving.
“Really, it’s not such a shocking story.
And she has since had two children herself, so she must know something about them.
I spoke to her at the intermission. She was actually very interesting, in her own way. ”
“Well, it is of no consequence to us,” Hedwig replied firmly. “We should hurry. The cakes might spoil in this heat.”
“Did you like it, Papa?” Lotte asked as she twirled ahead of them, her skirt flying out, her golden hair catching the last of the sun’s rays. “Wasn’t it wonderful? All that lovely music… it sounded like heaven, to me.”
“You were wonderful,” Manfred replied with a laugh, “as I expect you know very well. I hardly need tell you, but I will, and no doubt more than once. My edelweiss daughters. You must keep those sprigs, as a reminder.”
His benevolent smile faltered for a moment, along with his step, as his gaze fell on a rowdy gang of boys across the street, jostling each other and laughing loudly.
A few daringly wore swastika armbands, the red and black visible even in the dusky light.
One of them was daubing paint onto a brick wall.
Manfred could make out Blut und Ehre. Blood and Honor.
One of the boys glanced over at the little group and then sent his arm shooting out like a challenge. “Heil Hitler,” he called, his tone one of both good humor and veiled threat; the Nazi party had been outlawed in Austria for a year, but it didn’t seem to deter its proponents very much.
Manfred dropped his gaze as he put his arm around his wife and continued on without replying.
Johanna’s glance swept over the boys with their short blond hair and bright eyes with a look of consideration; Birgit’s lips twisted as she turned away.
One of the boys snared Lotte’s gaze with a bold look of his own and she flushed and hurried to catch up with her father.
“Come, girls,” Hedwig called sharply, although they’d all already turned away from the scene. “It’s getting late.”
As the shadows lengthened and the sky grew dark, the little family hurried towards Getreidegasse and the waiting cakes while Lotte began to sing the last verse of “Die Lorelei,” Birgit and Johanna gamely taking up their parts, their voices rising with melancholy beauty up into the oncoming night.
“The boatman in the small ship is gripped with wild pain,
he does not look at the rocky reefs, he only looks up into the heights.
I think the waves devour boatmen and boats at the end…”