Chapter Sixteen Maria

Chapter Sixteen

Maria

Salzburg, Austria

1934

I wake the next morning seized by the same panic that came over me on my first night in the villa and for several moments I have no idea where I am. The cranberry-colored walls are unfamiliar. So are the soft gray sheets and wooden bed. Then I turn and see Georg's naked back, heavily muscled from his years in the navy, and my heart stills.

"You can't be awake already?" he asks.

"Yes." I have the strangest feeling that I'm forgetting something. Then I glance at the clock on his nightstand and bolt upright. "The children will be downstairs in twenty minutes!"

He groans and turns over, reaching for me. "It's our first morning. Let the Baroness take care of them."

When I don't say anything, he scrambles to a sitting position. "There is no Baroness," he remembers.

I nod.

We are downstairs in fifteen minutes, sitting at opposite ends of what suddenly seems to be an extraordinarily long table. My place in the dining room has changed. I am seated in the Baroness's chair, a wife and Baroness myself. I stare across the room at Georg and begin to snicker.

He smiles. "What?"

"It's just…She was such a presence, wasn't she? It feels wrong to be sitting in her chair."

"You may have to start wearing corsets." He grins, and I like this new side of Georg. "She was all right in the end though, wasn't she? I believe she was happy for us." His eyes soften. He's about to say something more, but the sound of feet hurrying down the stairs cuts him off and suddenly the room is full of excited voices.

"So what are we doing today?" Rupert asks, wrapping his arms around his father's shoulders. There is so much affection between father and son.

"Yes, it's our first day together as a family," Johanna points out. "Should we play a game?"

"The sun is out," Werner says. "Let's hike the Unterberg."

"What? In our snowshoes?" Agathe asks.

"Oh, I like that idea," Georg admits. "What do you say, Frau von Trapp? In the mood for a game or for a little hike?"

It's a sign of how well my new family knows me that everyone exclaims, "The hike. She wants the hike!" And it's the most glorious trip we ever take up the mountain. We don't go all the way to the top, but on a ledge overlooking the snowy valley Georg slips his gloved hand in mine.

"It still doesn't seem real," he admits. In the bright winter's sun, his eyes are hazel, and I think of what a fool the princess was. "I'm glad we aren't leaving for a honeymoon," he admits. "I can't think of anything better than this."

But that evening, when the children are all in bed, I discover that there is something even more beautiful than the icy Salzach glittering beneath the winter sun. Our coming together had hurt last night. But this is different, more passionate, and Georg is not surprised in the least when I tell him one morning in June that I feel sick.

"It's like my stomach won't sit still," I complain, holding on to the bathroom sink.

But instead of the sympathy I'm expecting, Georg smiles. "It seems to me we've been working pretty hard toward this moment."

"What moment?" I cry, steadying myself in case I retch again. And then I know.

His smile widens.

But instead of feeling joy, a wave of terror sweeps over me. How could this be happening? I think of all the women I've known who've been called to God with children still in the nursery, and the fear of leaving a precious child alone is overwhelming. Even Agathe, with the very best doctors at her disposal, had left seven children behind.

Suddenly, Georg is crossing the bathroom and taking me in his arms. "Maria, it's going to be wonderful."

"But what if it isn't?" I'm weeping in earnest now. "Look what happened to Agathe. What if—"

He tightens his arms around me. "You're not going anywhere," he says.

"How do you know?"

"Because God didn't send you to us just to take you away."

He is right, and this thought comforts me throughout my pregnancy, through the birth of a beautiful little girl named Rosmarie, and then, three years later, through the birth of my sweet Eleonore, whom we all call Lorli, in 1934.

A family of eleven. Can you imagine? I find myself saying at least a dozen times a day, "Agathe, did you remember…" But she always remembers. She is a godsend. At twenty-one she is as old as I was when I arrived to tutor her younger sister. And now she has all but taken my place, looking after the little ones, taking care of the sewing, seeing that everyone is off to school. Although by now many of the children no longer require watching. Rupert is twenty-three and studying to become a doctor in Vienna. Mitzi is twenty (yes, that Mitzi, my Mitzi) and teaches in Nonnberg in the very same classroom where I used to teach. Werner is nineteen and working on a nearby farm, hoping to own a farm of his own one day. And Hedwig, who is perhaps the most help to me after Agathe, is already seventeen. But the rest of the children need looking after, as my own time is taken up with overseeing the villa.

It's a full day's work to make sure the house runs as smoothly as it did when Baroness Matilda was here. There are excursions to plan and gardeners to oversee and a household staff of more than twenty to manage. Some days, I don't see little Lorli or Rosmarie until the cook rings the bell for dinner and Agathe brings them down from the nursery. Then it's "Mama! Mama!" and neither of them wants to do anything except wrap her arms around my neck and bury her face in my hair. But after a day of ordering supplies for the villa and frittering away my time on other useless tasks, I'm usually hungry and irritable. "Sit still!" I tell them, and then their eyes fill with tears and it's Agathe who reminds me gently, "Mother, I think they simply want cuddles." And so one of the girls will always end up eating dinner on my lap.

It's a full life, a wonderful life, and no matter how busy any of us might be, everything comes to a stop after dinner. Some families use this time to play board games or cards. But the von Trapps sing. We've made our very own choir in four parts, with Agathe and Johanna as first sopranos, Martina and Mitzi as second sopranos, Hedwig and I as altos, and Werner as our tenor. When Rupert is home, he becomes our bass vocalist.

We sing the folk songs I learned while wandering through the Alps, and sometimes the more popular songs that Werner and Agathe like to play on the gramophone, like "Gitarren Spielt Auf." On Sundays, we sing Gregorian chants or chorales by Bach. Every day it's something different, and many times the neighbors will come for tea to hear our songs—often the Hofmanns or the Strassers. When the singing is finished, the men retire to talk about their time in the military, while I'm left with the women to chat about housekeeping and raising children. One evening, Georg comes to me in bed and asks whether I am happy.

"Do you ever regret not taking your vows?"

I turn and stare at him. How could he think that? "Never."

"Then why are you always so tense?"

I feel my cheeks warm. "Because I don't think I was cut out for this," I blurt. "All this house minding and talk about shopping and servants. I can't stand it."

"You mean with the Strassers today?"

"With anyone. I don't care about where I can buy the finest dirndl in Salzburg!"

He laughs.

"I'm serious, Georg. You get to talk about your time in the military. What you did during the war. What's happening in the world. The book you're writing. I have to talk about the best leather shops in Barcelona."

"So, what would you rather talk about?" he asks.

"Literature, music, singing…"

He nods but doesn't say anything. Because there's no forcing his friends' wives to care about these things. And so it continues, my repetitive days as a vapid hostess, until a single phone call changes our lives. I am upstairs when I hear the phone ringing, a high tinny sound that echoes throughout the house until I reach the library downstairs and pick up the receiver. The woman's voice on the other end sounds familiar, but at first I can't place it.

"Maria?" She can hear from my silence that I'm drawing a blank. "It's Auguste, the owner of Lammar Bank."

"Oh, good morning."

There's a moment of silence on the line. "Actually, not so good. Is Georg home?"

I fight a strange tightening in my chest. "He's in the garden."

"Would it be possible to speak with him?"

"Of course." I turn and find him hovering in the doorway, his eyes alert. "It's Auguste. From Lammar Bank."

Something tells me to remain in the room while he takes the call, and I can see from the way his back stiffens that the news isn't good. "Are you sure?" he keeps saying. "All of it? What do you mean ‘All of it'?" When he replaces the receiver, his face is ashen.

"What happened?"

"It's gone," he says like a man in a daze.

"What do you mean? What's gone?"

He sinks into the chair behind his desk. "Our money. All of it. Just…gone."

The entire world seems to slow when tragedy strikes, as if life is trying to give you more time to process what's happening. More time to see the chain of unfortunate events that has led you to this moment, link by link. Our money had always been kept in the Bank of England. But we had vacationed with Auguste and her family last year, and when Georg heard that her bank was floundering, he offered to withdraw his money from England and place it with her.

"You would do that?" Auguste had asked at the time, touched by this show of faith.

"Of course."

Now the Lammars have lost everything. And so have we.

"You have to call Rupert," I say. "He needs to come home tonight."

Georg nods, not really listening. His entire life he has worked, from the time he was fourteen and sent off to the naval academy. It was his wife Agathe, with her jewels and estates, who changed his life. And since her death, he had guarded her fortune carefully, only placing it with Auguste because he believed it would help not only her family but Austria. For if Austria's banks failed, her military wouldn't be far behind. He was simply placing his financial faith in the country he'd spent his youth defending.

I watch him open a desk drawer and take out a pipe, but his hand is shaking. I've never seen him like this. I hurry over and strike the match, lighting the bowl. "The children have to be told," I say. Lorli is three and Rosmarie six. It won't matter to them. But the others will understand the gravity of this development. "Is there anything left?"

Georg meets my gaze, his voice a whisper. "A few hundred pounds in the Bank of England."

He inhales and exhales, blowing smoke through his nose like a dragon. There's no career left to him. When the Treaty of Versailles cut off Austria from the sea, his maritime career of twenty years was finished. Perhaps he can lecture. He is writing a second book on submarines. But that will never be steady income. And what other jobs are fit for a Baron?

"We only need enough to maintain the villa," I say. "We can take on boarders."

I see him clench the pipe between his teeth. "Never."

"Students from the Catholic University," I say. "Or nuns traveling from afar to the abbey. We could even apply to the archbishop to have our own chapel! Plenty of estates have one."

"And where would we put it?"

I think for a moment. "The reception room," I tell him.

Georg stares at me in disbelief. "You're indefatigable, aren't you?"

—

The children take the news better than could be imagined. For several moments there is silence in the library, with only the terrible, loud ticking of the clock echoing throughout the room. Then everyone begins asking questions at once. Mitzi wants to know if this means she'll have to stop going to school. It doesn't, but Rupert will now have to go to work to finish his medical degree. Lorli wants to know if we'll still have food to eat. Georg tells her that we will, but that the money will have to come from boarders.

"The rooms on the first floor will all have to be vacated," I say. "Our family will keep to the floors above."

"But what will we do for clothes?" Johanna asks. At sixteen, this is what's most important to her.

"We've lost our money, not our clothes," I say wryly. "We'll make do with what we have."

"So no more vacations?" Martina confirms.

Georg shakes his head. "Not for some time."

"But does no money mean no money at all ?" Hedwig asks.

"None," I say quietly. "This morning, your father sold off his last remaining piece of land in Munich. All we have left now is this house."

The youngest children find this hilarious. "Our money is gone! Our money is gone!" Rosmarie begins dancing around the room, and Lorli takes up the chant.

"This isn't a game," Agathe snaps.

But I don't chastise them, and there's no need for the older children to be anxious, even though Johanna is blinking back tears. "We're not the only family to have this happen," I say, "and we won't be the last. God will provide. Nec aspera terrent, " I tell them.

It's the von Trapp family motto, now mine as well, and it means Frightened by No Difficulties.

—

The news of our sudden misfortune travels even faster than the news of our marriage, and a small part of me is glad that my uncle is dead and cannot gloat over this. Instead, the neighbors do it for him, stopping Georg on the street to remark on how thin he's getting.

"Times are hard," our neighbor Herr Weber commiserates, building a protective wall around his finances in case we should come knocking, "but we have extra potatoes and onions if you'd like. I can have my butler bring them over."

Our butler, Hans, and our laundress are the only staff we've continued to employ, so the offer doesn't sting as much as it might. But Georg is still enraged.

"Potatoes and onions!" he shouts when he finds me cleaning the kitchen. "The same man who ate white caviar at our Christmas parties."

I continue wringing out the dishcloths and shrug. "Isn't it nice to know who your real friends are?"

But a week before our first boarders arrive, Georg returns in the darkest mood I've seen. I have to leave my dusting to Agathe and join him in the library before he'll talk.

"Those Hofmanns!" he seethes. I've rarely seen him angry. But his fists are clenched and the veins in his forearms are bulging.

I sit across from his desk. "You mean Ingrid or Stefan?"

"The wife!"

He has never referred to Ingrid as "the wife" before and I can't imagine what's happened.

"She stopped me in the street to tell me how happy she was to see that we were all carrying on. As if what? We were supposed to shrivel up and die? And then—" He takes hold of his pipe. "Then she said she was impressed to see that our children still managed to be well dressed."

Now it's my turn to look horrified. "What's the matter with people?"

"I have half a mind—"

But I shake my head. "It doesn't matter, Georg."

"It does!" He bangs his fist on the desk.

"I promise you, it doesn't." And then I quote softly, "?‘And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.' Haven't you always wondered?" I ask.

"Wondered about what ?" He stuffs his pipe full of tobacco.

"About whether you have what it takes to still have faith without your career, your wealth, and everything that once defined you? Anyone can be pleasant when life is going well. We only truly know who we are when life stops going according to our plans. You were a good, kind man when we had money, and it turns out that you are a good, kind man even without it. Don't let the Ingrids of the world take that from you."

He thinks on this for a moment, then sighs. "How do you keep so much faith, Maria?"

"Because I came from nothing and God provided. He will provide now, too."

—

The first indication that our faith has been rewarded comes in the form of a letter. The Bishop of Salzburg has granted our request, and it takes only a few days for us to transform our dining room into a chapel worthy of the name. The abbey gifts us a beautiful altar while the boys go about building wooden pews. Martina sets to work with Agathe on sewing an altar cloth, while Georg and Rupert turn our music room downstairs into a dining room. It's hardly the life the children have been accustomed to, but when our first boarders arrive and turn out to be a pair of gregarious theology students, we wonder if perhaps this is something just as good. And when word begins to spread that we are taking in boarders from the university, students begin lining up for places in our villa.

Soon our evenings are filled with the sound of a dozen voices discussing politics, music, science, and the arts. Johanna, who cooks as beautifully as she sings, oversees the menu each night, and while the boarders debate music and politics, the younger children bring in platters of bread, vegetables, and roasts. It's the kind of world I've been yearning for since arriving in Salzburg. And now we have it every night—a villa full of the intellectually curious.

In June, a professor by the name of Dillersberger arrives, and suddenly we have a priest for our chapel. In the mornings, before going to the university, he says Mass in our chapel, and we all crowd together in our beautiful little sanctuary to receive the Eucharist. And nothing can be sweeter than seeing our three-year-old pressing her chubby palms together, offering up her prayers of thanksgiving each morning.

"You're happier than I've seen you in a long time," Georg remarks one night, stroking my hair. "I'd hate to think we had to lose everything for you to be this happy."

"Because we've been set free. We don't have to worry over what the neighbors might think if the children are too loud or if they're dressed in your bedroom curtains. It simply doesn't matter anymore!"

Georg smirks. "It is freeing, isn't it?"

"And now you can write your book in peace."

"Yes. No one visits us anymore, do they?" There's a tinge of sadness to his voice but also wonder that even the Strassers are too afraid to pay a call in case we should ask them for something.

But it doesn't matter. Our house is full, and the conversations last long into the night: through dinner, then dessert, and once the children are off to bed, over late mugs of chamomile tea near the fire. In early July of 1934, our talk once again turns to Hitler. Before, he had been an oddity, a nuisance. But suddenly he has risen to chancellor of Germany and has done the unthinkable. He's used the SS to murder his predecessor, Chancellor von Schleicher, as well as many opponents of the Nazi regime.

With the children in bed, Georg carries the day's papers across the squeaky floorboards of the library. Then ten of us sit in a half circle and listen while he reads from the Neue freie Presse.

"?‘More than five hundred insurrectionists are thought to have been executed on the night of June thirtieth, as Hitler began his purge of the country's rebels.'?"

"Is that what they're calling them?" Professor Dillersberger exclaims. "Rebels?"

"I'd think ‘critics' would be more appropriate," I say.

"?‘The purge began at midnight and among those killed are SA Chief of Staff Ernst R?hm and his most senior commanders.'?"

The room falls silent.

"This is serious." Dillersberger is the first to speak. He runs a shaky hand through his mop of dark hair and suddenly seems much older than his thirty years.

"What is England's take on it?" another boarder asks, and Georg reaches for the Daily Express.

He shakes out the newspaper and reads the headline. "?‘Captain Rohm Executed. Arrested Storm Troop Commander Given Ten Minutes to Kill Himself—Shot When He Refuses.'?"

"Hitler's become dangerous," I say, voicing my fear.

"He's always been dangerous," Georg says darkly. "But he couldn't have done this without the support of the army's commanders. He'll need them if he wants to reach the top."

I gasp. "By the top you mean president?"

Dillersberger nods grimly. "That's where this is leading. He wants the critics of the Nazi Party silenced, and somehow he's gotten the army's commanders to agree."

For a few days it's all anyone can talk about, then the world seems to settle and our concerns grow mundane again—the basket of chalk that Rosmarie has lost, the mutton we'll need to buy for tonight's dinner. Summer rolls into autumn and the chestnut trees burst orange and gold across the horizon. Then in the spring of 1935, Professor Dillersberger announces his departure from Villa Trapp. We are all terribly sad about this, particularly as we've grown accustomed to his morning Mass and Sunday sermons.

"But who will do our church now?" Lorli asks over dinner, her little voice rising above the din of the table conversation.

Dillersberger puts down his fork and smiles. "A wonderful man by the name of Father Wasner. You have nothing to worry about."

Georg has known Franz Wasner for years. And although we're both the same age—twenty-nine—Wasner has done more in his time than I have ever dreamed of. After getting his degree in theology, he was ordained and began serving as a priest in Tyrol. When this was not enough, he traveled to Rome to study ecclesiastical law and graduated with a doctorate in canon law. Now he is an instructor of Gregorian chants at the most prestigious university in Salzburg.

That Wasner has agreed to say Mass at our villa on Saturdays is wonderful news, and I tell the children what an honor it will be to have him with us.

"But why not every day?" Lorli complains.

Dillersberger laughs. "I'm afraid he's a very busy man."

When Wasner comes the entire family stands in the drive to wait for his arrival. I have never met him, but he looks just the way Georg has described: tall, bespectacled, with unruly blond hair and earnest blue eyes. He is wearing the black clothes and white collar of a priest, and as he crunches up the drive I think of how familiar he seems with his cleft chin and boyish face.

"A pleasure to finally meet you, Frau von Trapp." He reaches out to take my hand, and when we shake, it suddenly comes to me. He looks like the American movie star Errol Flynn.

"Please, just Maria," I say.

"Have you come to teach us about God?" Lorli asks. With her braids wrapped in a halo around her head, she looks older than three.

Wasner laughs. "Well, yes. And I thought perhaps you might sing for me while I'm here. Is it true that your entire family sings?"

Lorli nods. "Oh, yes. Everyone loves it. Except Rosmarie. She sings because Mother makes her."

I flush, and Rosmarie does her best to avoid my gaze. "It would be our pleasure," I tell him.

He falls into step with Georg, and I go to Rosmarie. "Is it true?" I ask her as we enter the house. "Do you not like to sing?"

She scuffs the floor with her patent leather shoe. "It makes me nervous," she tells me in a small voice.

"You're six! What do you know about nerves?" I laugh, and the look in her brown eyes is one of deep betrayal. Of course, I think of my laughter now and it mortifies me. But I was twenty-nine and what did I know about anxiety? So we perform for Father Wasner. Agathe suggests the Gregorian chant "Tantum ergo sacramentum," and after we sing, our guest joins us for breakfast.

We wait to hear what he is going to say.

"Maria, your voice is lovely. And I don't think I've ever heard of an entire family that sings. You actually have a choir," he marvels. "How did this come about?"

Everyone begins talking at once, then Georg tells him about his first wife's love of music and her passion for violin. "Then Maria came into our lives and continued the tradition."

"It's extraordinary," Wasner says, looking around at us. "And who taught you this Gregorian chant?"

"Mother did," Johanna says proudly. "She's taught us all the songs from her time in the Catholic Youth Movement."

"Wonderful," he tells me, and just as my head is beginning to swell, he asks why I decided to change the harmony at the beginning of the song.

"I didn't."

"Then you've been singing it incorrectly."

Lorli snickers, possibly because I'm usually the one going around telling the family that what they're doing is incorrect. Even Wasner smiles a little at the surprise that is evident on my face.

"If you would like," he offers, "I am happy to teach you the right way to sing it."

It is the start of something extraordinary. Now, instead of spending our Saturdays tidying up the villa and pruning in the garden, we gather in our music room downstairs and sing Gregorian chants with Father Wasner. By May, we have committed nearly every chant he knows to memory.

One Saturday he hurries in with his hair uncombed and a satchel full of papers. "You won't believe what I've found in the university's archives," he says, coming into our dining room and spreading the papers across the table. "This music hasn't been heard in hundreds of years!"

Eleven of us gather around the table and begin sifting through the piles like archaeologists searching for treasure.

"Look at this!" Johanna says, holding up a piece from the fifteenth century.

Lorli reaches for one of the papers and Georg gasps. "These aren't originals, are they?"

Father Wasner grins. "Copies. I spent the past three weeks on this."

By August, we are singing pieces that haven't been heard in Austria since Mozart was a child. We sing for ourselves, for our boarders, for visiting family. One weekend, Father Wasner brings his colleagues from the university to hear us sing what he's discovered in the archives, and the next weekend we find ourselves making a recording so that the professors can play it for their students.

And I suppose it would have gone on like this—our family performing simply for the joy of it—if not for the sudden appearance of someone famous on our doorstep. I'm helping the laundress hang out the clothes when Hedwig comes running, her braids swinging behind her.

"Mother, you're not going to believe this, but Lotte Lehmann is in our parlor."

I exchange a look with Petra, our young laundress, who immediately puts down the pegs. " The Lotte Lehmann?"

Hedwig nods eagerly. "The soprano!"

"Well, what is she doing here?" I wipe my hands on my apron and flatten my skirt.

"She wants to rent rooms in our villa during the Salzburg Festival!"

I hurry into the parlor with Petra on my heels to see if it's true. It is. Lotte Lehmann is there, dressed in a pink silk top and matching skirt. And she's just as beautiful in person, with the same porcelain skin and startlingly blue eyes as she had on the cover of Time magazine.

"You must be Frau von Trapp," she says, extending a gloved hand.

There's dirt under my fingernails and a stain on my sleeve. "Please, just Maria." I'm staring, but I can't help it. I've never met a famous person before. And then I remember—my children! "And this is Hedwig."

"Lovely to meet you." She smiles.

"And Lorli," I say, motioning for her to stop peering around the doorway and step into the parlor. "And this is Petra," I add, nudging Petra forward. She flushes red, and I'm sure our faces look similar.

"Well, I've heard this is the place to stay near Salzburg. Do you think you might have room for me here during the festival?"

"Oh, yes. Absolutely," I tell her. And soon neighbors who haven't visited us in a year are dropping by "just to see how you're all getting on."

But I stand on the doorstep and block their view inside. "Oh, it's been busy," I say as Ingrid Hofmann tries to peer over my shoulder. "Just trying to keep nine children well dressed."

If she understands the reference, it's not evident from her face. "I imagine a family of nine means there's always something to do. Still, it's a shame we haven't even had coffee recently."

I nod without saying anything, then we both look at each other until the silence becomes awkward.

"Well, if you'd ever like to come by for dinner…" she begins, and the invitation hangs in the air, waiting for me to catch it and reciprocate. I don't.

"That's very nice. Thank you."

The same scene is repeated the next day with the Strassers, only it's both of them who appear on our doorstep, dressed in their Sunday best, trying to catch a glimpse of our famous guest.

"You know, we can't turn them away forever," I tell Georg. "They've been your neighbors for ten years."

But he just puffs on his pipe and returns to his typewriter. His book is coming out next month, and this means preparing talks and giving radio interviews. "If they're still coming around after Frau Lehmann leaves, we'll invite them in."

Our entire family is entranced by Lotte. The way she walks, the way she dresses, the way she tells stories over dinner about her trips to America.

"But I hear I'm not the only one in this villa who sings," she says after dessert one evening. She is on her second helping, and I'm not surprised. Agathe has outdone herself, and the whole house smells of baked apples and cinnamon. "Is it true that this entire family sings?"

"Well, not Papa," Johanna says. "But the rest of us do. Especially Mother."

Everyone nods eagerly, including the six boarders, who have no choice but to listen to us practice.

"Well, when am I going to be invited to hear something?" Lotte asks.

We don't need any further encouragement. As soon as the plates are cleared, we assemble in the music room and our boarders seat themselves in wooden chairs.

I look around. "Where is Rosmarie?"

"She was here a moment ago," Agathe says.

"Rosmarie?" I call. She's not in the dining room. Or the kitchen.

"Try under her bed," Martina suggests dryly. "That's usually where I was before you'd come dragging me out."

Martina is thirteen. It's been years since we've had to go searching the house for her. But now it's Rosmarie…. I glance at Lotte, who is looking through one of our binders filled with Father Wasner's Gregorian chants. "I'm sorry," I tell her. "I'll be right back."

Upstairs, Rosmarie is exactly where Martina said she would be. Under the bed, crying.

"What's the matter with you?" I exclaim, holding up the covers so I can see her. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and the two braids on either side of her face are sweeping the dust.

"Please don't make me go down there and sing. Please," she wails.

I grab her arm and slide her out. "Why not?"

"Because I hate it!" she cries.

I kneel on the wooden floor. "Ros, you have a beautiful voice."

"I don't care! I hate it."

My heart races. Downstairs, the world's most famous soprano is waiting. Her good opinion could keep boarders coming to us for months. Possibly years. "I don't ask you to do many things," I say sternly, "but this is important."

"It's always important!" She rubs at her eyes, turning the skin around them red, and now it's obvious that she's been crying.

"I want you to go down there and sing," I say sternly.

"And if I don't?" Her voice trembles.

She is only six and one of three sopranos. We don't really need her. Still…"We are a family," I say. "And families stand together." I reach for her hand.

When we return to the music room, I make a joke of it. "The escapee!" I say, and everyone laughs. I place Rosmarie next to me in case she tries to bolt. But once we start singing, even she doesn't wish to stop. We sing two of Father Wasner's latest discoveries, then "Jesu, meine Freude" by Bach. And when we're finished, the only sound is our own ragged breathing as we try to catch our breaths. Then suddenly our audience members are on their feet.

"Extraordinary!" Lotte begins clapping wildly. For us. "Just extraordinary!"

Around the table and chairs in our garden the next morning, Lotte can't stop talking about our performance. While Agathe and Mitzi bring out fresh lemonade, she tells us that there's nothing like our little singing group anywhere in Europe.

"No one would believe that an entire family has its own choir. You should be singing for the world."

I can see the color drain from Georg's face, because there could be no greater shame than a nobleman's family being seen to work. And at singing, no less. But Lotte is looking at him with such big, earnest eyes.

"Oh, yes," he says, laughing, as if this is a good joke.

"But I'm serious," she says. "They could tour Europe. Even America!"

Now Georg is beginning to look alarmed.

"You can't keep this hidden," she presses. "They should enter the folk singing competition tomorrow at the festival."

Georg takes the pipe from his mouth. "What? You mean to sing onstage?"

She laughs. "What do you think I do?" Then she turns to look at the rest of us, gathered in the sunshine around the picnic tables. "What do you think? Would you like to enter the competition?"

The cheer that goes up startles even me. I look at Georg.