Chapter Twenty Maria

Chapter Twenty

Maria

Salzburg, Austria

1938

Standing in front of the mirror, I draw my shirt tightly around my waist. Then I turn and look from the other side. "Georg!" I shout, but he's shaving and can't hear me over the running water. "Georg!" I cry, and this time the urgency in my voice cuts through the sound. He hurries out and I leave the shirt tight for him, so he can see the tiny bulge.

"Are you—"

I smile, then suddenly my eyes fill with tears until I can't even see him approach.

"Oh, Maria, a baby. Number ten!"

I blink back tears and steady him with my gaze. "Twelve."

"Of course," he whispers. He looks immensely sad for a moment, then I pull him closer and bury my face in his shoulder to cry. I'm thirty-two, and in eleven years of marriage, there have only been two children of my own.

"What if this one doesn't stay?" I whisper.

"Then we will pray," he says, swelling my heart, because prayers have never been his first course of action. "And you will rest," he adds firmly.

I inhale the lingering scent of his shaving cream and nod. "Yes. This time, I'll rest."

The next morning we go to see Dr. Katz. I put on a tea-length dirndl embroidered with silver edelweiss. Dr. Katz is from the mountains, like me, and I know he will appreciate it. But when the nurse comes to see us in the foyer of his little office on the Getreidegasse, the most famous street for shopping in Salzburg, she tells us he's left.

"What do you mean, left? For the day?" Georg questions.

The woman presses her lips together, then folds her hands on the desk as if she's being incredibly patient with us. "Left as in gone. He was Jewish," she says.

"And what does that matter?" Georg's voice is rising. "This is his clinic. I was here when he started it thirty years ago!"

"Is there something I can help you with?" A man in a white coat appears behind the nurse, and the woman turns on her heel.

Georg's mustache is quivering. "Your nurse has just told me that Dr. Katz isn't here."

"That's right," the man says simply. "I'm Dr. Krause. What can I help you with today?"

And just like that, Dr. Katz is gone. I look around the foyer, to see if there are other outraged faces, but the women are either tending to babies or knitting. The men are reading newspapers, undisturbed.

We're taken back to the room where Dr. Katz has always seen us, but everything that once belonged to him has vanished. The framed photographs of his children, his charts, even his little wooden horse on a string.

"Do you know where he's gone?" I ask Dr. Krause.

The man looks over his round spectacles at me. "Where who's gone, Frau von Trapp?"

"Dr. Katz."

"Two weeks ago I was told there was a position to be filled here in Salzburg, so I came. This is all I know. Now how can I help you?"

I stare teary-eyed at Georg, but there's nothing to be done. I can't speak. I can't even look around the office without wanting to cry. So Georg tells this new doctor about my condition. How my kidneys haven't been strong enough to carry a child to term these last few years.

The doctor examines me and confirms what Dr. Katz has said. Then he gives me strict instructions to rest.

"Whether this child can be born will be determined by how well you take care of yourself, Frau von Trapp. Keep to a strict diet of vegetables and broth, don't become too excited, and in eight months there will be a baby."

When rehearsals with Father Wasner are over that evening, Georg calls a family meeting, first to discuss Dr. Katz, then the coming baby. We wait until the children have finished clearing the plates before explaining what happened this morning. It's such upsetting news that I focus my attention outside on the rain, which hasn't let up since we returned from the doctor's office.

"What do you mean, gone?" Rupert echoes our disbelief. Like Georg, he's dressed in a heavy argyle sweater. This entire month has been unseasonably cold.

"No one can tell us where he is. Did he flee? Was he taken to a camp?" Georg lights his pipe and then tosses the match aside. "I've made some phone calls—nothing so far."

"But he can't be gone," Lorli says, climbing onto Georg's lap. "Dr. Katz gave me my wooden horse."

"Yes," Georg says, his voice barely above a whisper. "He loved to make toys."

"So who will be our doctor now?" Rosmarie asks.

"A man named Krause," I say, blinking quickly to keep myself from crying.

"So, no more Dr. Katz and no more Bruno Walter," Rosmarie reflects.

Georg and Father Wasner exchange looks across the table and Georg lowers his pipe. "What do you mean?"

"At school today they told us that Jews like Bruno Walter can no longer conduct Aryan music. Is that true?"

The room goes so intensely silent for several moments that the only sound is the staccato rain on the roof.

"Bruno Walter is a genius," Father Wasner explodes. "And anyone who says otherwise is a fool!" His cheeks are red and his eyes are blazing. I've never seen him so angry. Music is his life's work, and some of the greatest musicians in Austria are Jewish. "What are these teachers doing to the children?"

Rosmarie shrinks back into her chair, and I pat her knee to reassure her that she isn't to blame. Then we all glance at the door, worrying about the imaginary specter of Hans interrupting us.

"You still haven't told us why you were visiting the doctor in the first place," Mitzi says.

Georg looks at me and for the first time that evening I smile. "A baby is on its way."

There are gasps all around the table, then congratulations, which feel inappropriate after such grim news.

Lorli climbs over to my lap and studies my stomach. "So will it be a boy or a girl?" she asks.

"Probably a girl like you and Rosmarie," I say. "We were thinking about Barbara for a name."

The older children appear uncomfortable, but the youngest are excited.

"And if it's a boy?" Rosmarie questions.

"Oh, it won't be a boy," I say. "Your father hasn't had a boy in years!"

This should be our last family meeting for some time. But each day there's some new outrage to discuss that isn't fit for the dinner table, and soon we are meeting every evening after rehearsals, gathering in the library and drawing the doors shut, then dropping our voices to just above a whisper. I don't know what Hans makes of it and don't much care. This man who was like a younger brother to Georg is now a stranger in our house.

On the tenth of May, Father Wasner doesn't wait until after our rehearsals to tell us what's happening at the university.

"They're burning books!"

"What do you mean?" Mitzi panics.

Father Wasner collapses onto the long, cream sofa in our music room, then buries his face in his hands. "Foreign literature, Jewish literature, anything the Nazis are deeming too radical. Even books by the American woman Helen Keller, simply because she asks for fair treatment for the blind." He tugs at his collar. The Nazis have as little sympathy for religious leaders as they have for the disabled. They will come for Father Wasner next. And then us. Because they won't stop until they've rid the country of every last dissenter.

For two days there is nothing much to report. We go for a family walk near the base of the Untersberg and for a brief moment we all feel like ourselves again. The hills don't care about politics. And they're the only thing of any considerable size not draped in the Nazi red and black. I stand with my face to the wind and close my eyes, inhaling the sweet scent of narcissi on the breeze. I feel small flutters in my stomach, the same way I did with the two I lost.

Just let me carry this little girl to term, I pray. If you let me have this one I'll never ask for another.

Georg comes up behind me and wraps me in his arms. "How do you feel?" he mumbles into my hair.

"Nervous." But the sturdy warmth of him makes me relax.

"These aren't easy times for a child to be born into."

No, they aren't, I think. But we will do what we've always done. Take comfort in our family. And God. Let the Nazis abandon Him. They will see how well that works out for them.

The next morning, I am praying in our chapel downstairs when the postman arrives with a letter from Vienna. It's addressed to Rupert. My chest tightens, wondering what it could mean. I take it to the library, and when everyone convenes for our evening meeting no one recognizes the address.

Rupert holds it up to the evening light, examining the envelope.

"Here, give it to me," his brother says, and Rupert hands the letter to Werner, who quickly opens it and skims the contents.

"Oh," Werner says, but no one is sure what sort of oh it is.

"What? What is it?" I can't bear the uncertainty.

"A job offer," Werner announces, but he sounds confused.

Rupert takes the letter and reads. Then his face darkens, and I have a good idea of what's coming next. "A position in Vienna's largest hospital has suddenly opened up and they are wondering if ‘the son of the esteemed Captain von Trapp and member of the now famous Trapp Family Choir' wishes to fulfill it. Suddenly opened up!" He crumples the letter in rage.

"Rupert!" Agathe exclaims. "Don't you have to respond?"

"Let silence be their response!" He rises, running a hand through his hair. "I'm no Dr. Krause."

Father Wasner nods approvingly, and Georg crosses the library to embrace his eldest child. But I hear Rupert sigh. He's twenty-seven and has worked years for this degree, traveling back and forth between his university and Salzburg to juggle life as both a singer and a medical student. This should be a time of excitement and new beginnings. Instead, everything feels like it's ending.

For the next few days we discuss the possible repercussions of turning down the offer from Vienna. The discussion even continues outside at the picnic tables, where Johanna has laid out a simple lunch.

"It's only a matter of time before the Party comes after us," Martina warns. "We don't display their flags, we don't use their salute, the children aren't singing their anthem in school. We should be prepared." She has always seen the glass as half empty. But this time, it really is. She traces her finger over the wood of our picnic table, and no one dares to disagree.

It's such a glorious time of year, with the fields spread out below a blue sky and a bright sun. How long will we be able to stay here? And where will we go if we can't?

"We really must keep our heads down," Rupert says. "We should only go to our concerts and come back. We shouldn't even talk with the neighbors."

I watch Lorli and Rosmarie running through the fields and feel desperately sorry for them. And for little Barbara, who isn't even here yet. How has it come to this? Tearing Jews out of their homes, sending them to camps, burning books, imprisoning political opponents. God will turn His back on Austria. He must if we continue allowing this. But what can we do?

It's late in July when the answer comes in a letter from the Department of the Navy. Hans finds us outside, picnicking on a blanket beneath the evergreens, and his face is lit up.

"From the Reichstag administrative office," he says breathlessly. "All the way from Berlin."

My heart stops in my chest. I look at Georg and see the color drain from his face. He takes the letter and tucks it into his jacket pocket, earning a disappointed look from Hans. The children are with Father Wasner, rehearsing our new songs now that religious pieces by Bach and Handel are forbidden to be performed in public. We wait until we're alone on the blanket to see what it is the Reichstag wants.

There's both wonder and fear in Georg's voice when he says, "It's a new command."

"No."

He passes the letter to me, but the words don't make sense. We formally request … The Adriatic Sea …

"What? What is it?" Rupert asks.

I haven't even noticed that the children have stopped singing.

"Papa?" Mitzi presses.

A circle forms around our blanket and Georg draws a deep breath. "The Reichstag has asked me to take command of the submarine fleet of the German Kriegsmarine."

To take command of the Kriegsmarine is to be set for life. No more troubles with money. No more troubles over anything at all. In 1917 Georg's submarine had held no more than five men at a time and sprang leaks. But according to Georg these new boats are extraordinary, with space for thirty-five men and a dozen torpedoes. To take this command would mean having a career again.

"What will you do?" Werner asks.

Georg folds the letter and shoves it deep into his breast pocket. "Tell them no, of course."

"They'll want to know why you're refusing," Rupert warns.

"Because I'm happily retired and too old," he says angrily.

"Georg." I meet his gaze. "That's not all that was in the letter."

The children wait for him to speak, and he shifts uncomfortably. "They want me to establish a base in the Adriatic Sea."

"But the Adriatic doesn't belong to Germany." Agathe frowns. "What do they mean?"

Father Wasner's voice is somber. "I think we already know."

War is coming.