Chapter Nineteen Maria

Chapter Nineteen

Maria

Salzburg, Austria

1937

The morning the offers start coming in, news begins to spread that the von Trapp family is going on tour. And when the day arrives, nearly all of Aigen turns up at the railway station to see us off. There are friends and neighbors crowded together, stretching beyond the platform. The sight brings tears to Georg's eyes, and mine as well, because even if some of these people have been awful, many others have been very, very good to us, especially after Georg realized that his fortune was gone.

As the train begins to pull away from the station, the children hang out the windows and wave, calling out promises to be back soon and to write. I watch our beloved Aigen fade from view, replaced by deep scarlet and purple fields of chard, then turn to my notebook and start to plan. It's the middle of November, and Father Wasner must be back in time for Christmas services. There are five countries on our tour, eighteen concerts to give, and everyone has their own checklists of places they wish to see. Most of all, I want to tour the Vatican, Georg wants to see the Colosseum, Mitzi and Johanna both wish to stand outside of Buckingham Palace, and Rupert wants to climb the Eiffel Tower.

Over the next six weeks we do all of these things and more. We have concerts in Paris, Rome, Brussels, London, and The Hague. And each concert is more successful than the last. But only because we continuously learn from our mistakes. In London we discover that no one is particularly interested in madrigals, while in Brussels we find completely by accident that audiences love to see me play my guitar and the children play their recorders. The constant program changes keep Father Wasner continuously busy, rewriting the music and making new books for each of us to use onstage. Georg, meanwhile, is in charge of our itinerary, and with so many stops, he is always at work.

I think even the youngest children agree that while the touring isn't easy, it's exciting. We have audiences with kings and queens, and in the Vatican, the Holy Father, Pope PiusXI, calls on us to sing "Ave Verum" for him. It's one of the happiest days of my life.

But in Paris something I've suspected to be true since the start of our trip becomes apparent. Johanna is braiding Rosmarie's hair for our concert when I see it—a bald patch that Rosmarie has been trying to hide by parting her hair differently these past few weeks. I cross the hotel room in several strides.

"What is this?" I gasp. It can't be real. "How did this happen? Are you pulling out your own hair?"

Rosmarie begins to cry and I accuse her of wanting to derail the tour. After all, how can she perform with a bald spot on her head? "We'll have to paint it," I say, and she now begins to wail.

"Mother, she isn't well," Johanna says. "Maybe she should take a night off."

"We're the Trapp Family Choir," I thunder, overruling this suggestion. "The only family where all the children sing—not some. And she is nine years old. If Lorli can manage, then so can she."

Except Lorli isn't managing. Not really. She is only six and the late hours are wearing on her. At night, she cries and asks to be carried back to the hotel. And in the morning, she almost falls asleep over her breakfast. But it's only temporary, I tell myself. It's the opportunity of a lifetime to see the rest of Europe, and this is what we do—setting off with our dirndls and lederhosen to all the great castles and cathedrals.

So Rosmarie carries on. And so does Lorli. And I ignore the looks the older girls pass among themselves, because someday they'll appreciate all of it. I would have given the world to have traveled across Europe with my siblings and a father who loved me. It may seem hard now, but in a few years the long hours of practice and late-night concerts will all seem worth it.

At Christmas we return to a stack of newspapers piled on top of our dining room table. Family and friends from all across Europe have sent us our reviews, and Hans has sorted them from the longest on top to the shortest. I think of him reading each article and then carefully finding its place in the stack and my eyes fill with tears.

"Happy to be home?" Hans asks.

Georg sighs. "Yes." He misses the routine of our life here. His morning walk around the estate with Hans, and their evening smoke on the porch, the two of them puffing away on their pipes as the sun dips below the horizon of trees.

We gather around the long wooden table and Rupert does the honor of reading each review aloud. It's more than any group could hope for. The Guardian has called us "the most talented family in Europe," and a newspaper in Vienna says we're the "rising stars of musical theater." Most important, we've earned enough money to run the villa for nearly a year, even without boarders.

At Christmas, the neighbors who had turned their backs on us a few years ago now come around to enjoy a concert instead of caviar. And for the briefest of moments it seems as if we might be able to fall back into the same beautiful life we had known before our fortunes changed. If we'd been paying attention, we would have known better. But in February of 1938, when Chancellor Schuschnigg tells Austria that there is nothing to worry about from Hitler and Germany, we believe him.

Then comes March, wrapped in a blanket of sleet and snow. For Agathe's twenty-fifth birthday, Mitzi bakes her sister's favorite chocolate cake, with brown sugar and vanilla, and we gather around the dining room table singing "Hoch soll er leben!" while snow falls over the estate.

"Look how beautiful!" Lorli exclaims, going to the window.

"Should we take the cake into the library and watch the snow fall?" Agathe suggests. The library has always had the best view.

So we all relocate, and while Georg stokes the fire, the room fills with the heady scent of burning cedar. Rupert turns on the radio, and above the crack and hiss of the flames comes an unexpected voice. Everyone freezes and I lower my cake to my lap. It's the voice of Chancellor Schuschnigg.

"What's happening?" Hedwig whispers.

"I am repeating this special announcement. Today, on the eleventh of March, 1938, the sovereign nation of Austria has fallen into the hands of the German government."

Agathe's plate drops to the floor.

"We are yielding to force." The chancellor's voice breaks. "We have chosen the ignominy of surrender over a long and bloody war. Austria—God bless you!"

Ten of us look around the library at one another, in deep shock. Then the German national anthem begins to play and suddenly it's real. We have surrendered our country of six million people to Germany's eighty million—just as they knew we would. Because any war between us would see our people slaughtered down to the last woman and child.

Georg's eyes fill with tears and Agathe's birthday is completely forgotten. Then suddenly the door to the library swings open and Hans is there, his blue eyes bright with excitement. He approaches Georg, who is seated behind his desk, and it takes me a moment to realize what's happening.

"Herr Korvettenkapit?n, I feel it is my duty to inform you that I am a member of the Party. I wanted you to know before"—he glances around the room, averting his gaze when he comes to Father Wasner—"before anything might be said or done that I should have to report. Austria and Germany are one. Heil Hitler!"

Hans removes himself before any of us have the chance to respond, then a German voice comes over the radio and proclaims, "Austria is finished. Long live the Third Reich!" A Prussian march begins to play the "Preu?ens Gloria," and when I see Georg with his eyes raised to the Austrian flag above the mantelpiece, I begin to weep.

The youngest children, Lorli and Rosmarie, come running, afraid of the silence that's ruined Agathe's party.

"What's happening?" Lorli asks, collapsing into my lap.

"We have a new government," I say between my tears.

"But why is that bad?"

I smooth her hair back behind her ears and make space for Rosmarie on my lap. "Because we didn't choose it," I tell her. "An angry man came and took over our government, and now we have to live with it."

Georg cuts his eyes to me, because Hans is only on the other side of the wall, but I don't care. I rise and ask Father Wasner to lead us into our chapel to pray. As we leave, I hear the bells of Nonnberg begin to ring. I inhale sharply and the voice on the radio joyfully proclaims, "Throughout Austria the people are greeting their liberators. Austria is free from oppression, and right now you are hearing all of Salzburg rejoice!"

I gasp. "Lie!" I scream, and immediately, Rupert and Werner are at my side.

"Mother, you can't—"

But I shake off Rupert's hand. "The nuns would never ring the bells—"

"Of course not," he reasons. "It's the Nazis."

—

Over the next few days, we discover what kind of influence these Nazis wield. There are stories of protesters being taken into the woods and never reemerging, of Jews being forced from their homes and put on trains. When I ask Georg why the Germans are so interested in the Jews, he doesn't have an answer for me. But when I ask where they're taking them, his face turns very pale.

"I've made a few phone calls," he says, "to some old friends from the navy." We're the only ones in the library, but his voice still drops. "They told me the Nazis are taking them to concentration camps."

I don't understand.

"Prisons where they'll force them to do manual labor," he explains.

I gasp. "What about the women and children?"

His face is grim. "Them, too."

My heart is racing. "We have to warn the Berghoffs and the Allstadts," I say. "And the Stiblers."

Georg motions for me to lower my voice. "Already done."

I glance at the door, hating how secretive we've become in our own house. "How can they do this?" I cry. But that's the thing about war and invasions. The enemy can do whatever they wish.

That afternoon, as Agathe returns with the girls from school, a long black car rolls into our drive and several men in uniform get out hurriedly. I stop beating out the dust from our dining room rug and feel my stomach clench.

The youngest one leads the group to our door. He acknowledges me with the new greeting that all of Austria is now supposed to adopt. "Heil Hitler." He salutes me and I simply stare back, hoping I look too old and stupid to have mastered this. "Is the Captain at home?"

I'm about to answer when Georg walks up and stands in the doorway beside me.

"Heil Hitler!" All three men salute at once.

My husband stands there, clearly too old and feeble to respond as well, and the young one clears his throat.

"Sir, the city is preparing for a visit from the Führer. We expect every house in Salzburg to be displaying the swastika. Yet it's come to our attention that you don't even own a flag."

"This is true," Georg says.

"How is this possible when we have already been here for two weeks?"

"Oh." Georg shoves his hands deep into his pockets. "I'm afraid it's just too expensive," he says. "We barely get by with what we have without buying flags."

The young man marches to the car and returns with two red banners. In the middle is the ancient symbol sacred to Hindus, now turned slightly and made into the emblem of the Nazi Party. "If you'd like, we can help you hang them from the windows."

"Oh." Georg studies them and furrows his brow. "Look at this red. The color does nothing for my villa. But if you'd like me to decorate, I have some lovely rugs." He turns their attention to the one I was beating clean moments before. "Shall I hang that from my window?"

The young man doesn't know what to say, and his comrades are growing impatient. These young Austrian boys aren't soldiers. A month ago, they were shoe clerks and apprentices.

"We have sixty more houses to get to," one of them complains. "We gave him the banners. That's what we came here to do. Let's go."

Georg smiles, as if the visit has been a big success, and we wave as they drive away. But as soon as they're out of sight, he crumples the red fabric in his hands. That afternoon, he calls a family meeting. Rupert is home from university with his new degree in medicine. Under any other circumstance we would be celebrating. But now we join Father Wasner around the dining room table and wait in silence.

"What happened today was a very close call," Georg says. Hans has been sent into the city to find a new tire for the car, so for the rest of the afternoon we can all speak freely. "This isn't going to be the last time the Nazis will make a request of us. And soon these requests will turn into commands." Georg has lived through a war once already and knows. "Father Wasner, of course, can do as he pleases. But I would like the rest of us to avoid the city at all costs."

I start to protest, but Georg holds up his hand. "The whole of Salzburg is hung with red and black, and we'd all sooner end our lives on dung heaps than salute that madman. We can only get into trouble by venturing out."

"Father's right," Werner says. "How long before we run across someone who takes offense at our silence?"

"Even at the university dissent was becoming dangerous," Rupert says. "I'm glad to be out of there."

"What happens when you find work?" Agathe asks.

Rupert shakes his head and answers honestly, "I don't know. But I won't salute their Führer."

We keep away from the city during the next few weeks, thinking that if we simply avoid other people we will be safe. But the children must still go to school, and this becomes our greatest worry. Each day Lorli and Rosmarie have some new heartache to report, beginning with the Nazi Party's view on Jesus. We're arranged around the fireplace mending and reading when Lorli asks quietly, "Is it true what they say in school?"

"And what do they say in school?" Agathe asks. Her voice is light. She is so good with children. Whereas immediately my blood is boiling.

"The teachers said that Jesus was a naughty little Jew who made trouble for his parents. But is that true?"

Agathe glances at me, bracing for the torrent of anger that's about to be unleashed, and soon Georg comes in from smoking his pipe on the porch to see what the commotion is about. When I'm too upset to tell him, it's Agathe who explains.

"Which teacher was this?" Georg asks calmly.

"We don't know their names," Rosmarie says. "All the teachers are new, even the principal—"

Georg and I exchange looks. It's not enough that the Nazis have taken over our government. Now they want our children, too.

"They said we're not to go home and talk about what we learn in school," Rosmarie tells us. "They said our parents are too old to understand. But we are the future," she says. "And we are the ones who will save the world."

I actually feel sick.

The next day, I am called into the office by the new principal. I arrive ten minutes before the children are let out, slowly making my way through the school. Eleven years ago I was a teacher here. The squat wooden buildings are still the same. There are even the same blackboards that Sister Johanna had made for each classroom door, to mark attendance. But the faces inside are unfamiliar. The Nazis have forbidden all nuns from teaching. God is to have no place in their new world.

I knock at the principal's office and a stern-looking woman with thin brows and extremely black curls answers the door.

"Frau von Trapp." As I enter, she holds out her hand. This used to be Sister Gisela's office, filled with potted plants and pretty lace curtains. Now there are no decorations. Of course, the cross over the desk is gone.

I seat myself on a stiff wooden chair and the principal takes her place opposite me. From behind her desk, she laces her fingers and studies me. "Your youngest daughter is a problem," she says.

"That's funny. She's never been a problem for me."

The woman fixes me with her gray eyes. "She is refusing to sing our new anthem," she says. "And when I asked her why, she told the class that her family would prefer to be discarded on a dung heap than sing the praises of their country."

Because it's not our country, I want to say. Instead, I just feel my face go hot.

"You see how this is a problem." She smiles, and I hate everything about her—the red of her lipstick, the giant curls in her hair. "But tomorrow I am sure she will join us in class. It would be very bad publicity for a family like yours to be seen as unpatriotic. Other families have found themselves sent to the camps. But I'm sure that won't happen to you."