Chapter Three Maria

Chapter Three

Maria

Salzburg, Austria

1926

I watch as Sister Johanna fights against her billowing skirts, crossing the rooftop one unsteady step at a time. "Maria!" she exclaims. She's only twenty-nine, but her voice sounds so much older and shriller. "Maria, what are you doing up here?"

She comes to stand next to me as I turn in circles, taking in the view. "Have you ever seen anything like it?" I ask. The entire world is stretched out before us, gilded beneath an amber sky. I squint as the rising sun catches the water of the Salzach and imagine the river is a string of diamonds.

Sister Johanna is incredulous. "You came up here to see the mountains?"

I take a deep breath of the mountain air. "I came up here to commune with God."

"The purpose of entering a convent, Maria, is to commune with God from within."

But that's ridiculous. "According to who?"

"According to the person who founded this abbey twelve hundred years ago!" Johanna frowns. She only wants the best for me, I know, but she doesn't understand. "You've missed breakfast," she says.

"That's fine." I point my chin to the sky, enjoying the warmth of the early-morning sun. "I don't care much for breakfast."

"Well, you're about to miss class."

"What?" I search her face. "What time is it?"

Her voice is clipped. "Ten past eight."

My six-year-olds will be waiting for me on the first floor of the abbey. "Why didn't you say something?" I gather my skirts and take the steps two at a time.

"All right." I clap my hands as I reach the landing. "All right. Into the class." There's tittering from several of the boys, but I herd them inside and have them find their seats.

"That was great, Miss Maria. It looked like you were flying! Can we do that?" Johann asks from his desk. He must have seen my slide down the banister to save time.

"Absolutely not," I say, taking attendance. I review the list and make a checkmark next to each child's name. All twenty-five students accounted for. But as I put down my clipboard I hear a little sniffle from the back of the class. The students motion me to Ilse's desk and I make my way over.

"Ilse." I squat down so that my eyes are level with hers. "Is everything all right?"

She shakes her pigtails.

"Would you like to tell me about it?" I ask.

She gives a little gasp. "I forgot my lunch," she whispers.

I smile. "Well, that's easily fixed," I say. "You can have mine."

Her eyes go big. "Really?"

"Of course." I straighten.

"Can I have some of yours, too?" Rupert asks from behind her.

I laugh. "Let's all share lunches today!" I suggest. "It can be a picnic." The cheer that goes up in my first-grade classroom squeezes my heart. "Everyone on the rug!" I tell them. "We're going to learn a new song."

The classroom door creaks open and Sister Lucia's wrinkled face appears in the crack. "A word?"

"We were about to begin!" I protest, reaching for my guitar.

She opens the door fully and a second figure steps inside. "The Reverend Mother wishes to see you. Sister Helene will watch the students."

In the two years that I've been here I've never once heard of a postulant being summoned to meet the Reverend Mother. I push down the panicky feeling rising in my stomach and put down the guitar, then turn toward my students. "Something important has come up," I tell them, "but I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail!"

The children have already arranged themselves on the rug. "But what about our new song?" a little girl asks.

I try for a confident smile. "I won't forget."

I follow Sister Lucia into the hall and she leads me down a flight of stone stairs. "Did the Reverend Mother say why she wants to see me?"

Sister Lucia only shakes her head. Lay sisters don't speak with candidates. In fact, there's no speaking at all among the nuns except between the hours of one and two. She walks as far as the bottom of the stairs. I'm expected to make my own way up to the Reverend Mother's parlor.

When I reach her door, my pulse begins to race. I hold my breath and knock.

"Ave," I hear her call. Come in.

I push open the wooden door and peer inside. The room is dark. Heavy furniture fills the chamber and a little old woman sits at a desk three times her size. I expect to find her scowling, so it surprises me when she smiles kindly and says, "Please, sit down."

I settle into a wooden chair, taking a moment to study the Reverend Mother from across her desk. She's old, probably in her sixties, but her dark eyes are still bright and none of her teeth are missing. She folds her hands in front of her and begins.

"Maria Kutschera," she says, "is that right?"

I nod, my throat full.

"Tell me, Maria, how old are you?"

"Twenty-one."

"Twenty-one," the Reverend Mother repeats. The place is so dimly lit and cold that I wonder if she even knows that it's summer outside and the geraniums are blooming. "And you came here when you were just nineteen, is that correct?"

"After I graduated from the State Teachers' Progressive Education College. Yes, Reverend Mother."

"And how do you like it here?"

Is this all she's looking for? "Oh, I absolutely love it," I admit. "The children I'm teaching have become like family to me. And this convent—well, I consider it my home. It's where I want to spend the rest of my life."

"Wonderful." But the Reverend Mother clasps and unclasps her hands in front of her, and I notice that her smile has faded a little. "And what would you say this convent has taught you these last two years?"

I feel like it matters very much how I answer this question, and my breathing quickens. My entire life I've wanted a home. To have it taken away now when I've come so close…"I've learned many lessons at Nonnberg," I begin, reaching. "But the most important lesson has been…to discover the will of God and then implement it."

"And what if the thing God wishes is hard?" she asks.

"Then surely He will provide the strength."

The Reverend Mother nods. "That is absolutely right."

I begin to jiggle my foot, worried.

The Reverend Mother watches me, and it's as if she's puzzling out what she wants to say next. "The sisters tell me you spent much of your youth climbing in the hills. Coming here could not have been an easy transition for you."

I think of all the infractions I've been reprimanded for over the years—giggling in the halls, speaking before one o'clock, sliding down the banisters—and I'm not sure what to say. The Reverend Mother saves me the trouble by opening the desk and producing a familiar sheet of paper.

"Your resolutions from last year," she says, and I'm sure I've turned pink from my neck to my ears. "Would you care to read them to me or shall I?"

"Oh, no. You can," I mumble.

"All right. ‘I will not whistle. I will not skip over the last steps. I will not go up on the roof and hop over the chimney.'?"

"Reverend Mother—"

"?‘I will not tickle anybody and make them laugh in a time of silence….'?"

"Reverend Mother, I believe, since then I've mended some of my ways."

"Yes." She looks surprised by this. "It has taken a great deal of time for you to become adjusted to our world. Which is why I am about to ask something you may find exceedingly difficult."

My heart feels as if it's banging against my ribs. Please don't tell me to leave. Oh, please don't say I'm not fit to enter the novitiate and take my vows.

"Yesterday, a very famous naval captain paid a visit to our abbey. Are you familiar with the name Captain Georg von Trapp?"

I stare at her and wonder why she would think I would know anything about some ancient sea captain. "No. I'm afraid not."

She nods slowly. "Well, he is a war hero. A widower with seven children and the last one too sickly to attend school. The mother died of scarlet fever and the little girl is recovering from the same illness. She's too fragile to make the long walk to the schoolhouse, and apparently the dirt road cannot be traversed by car. So he came to us."

I still don't understand what this has to do with me. "But what does he want?"

"He wished to know whether we might lend him a teacher."

The full horror of what's happening suddenly becomes apparent.

"Maria." The Reverend Mother unfolds her hands and her dark eyes steady me. "You are the best teacher we have."

"That isn't true," I say at once.

"I am told you taught your students forty-seven songs between September and Christmas."

"Yes, but—"

"And when the superintendent came to inspect our school the sisters say he instructed all of our teachers to follow your example."

"That is true," I say feebly, sinking back into my chair. The room feels oppressive, the dark wooden furniture crowding in on me.

"The assignment would only be for ten months."

"What?" I cry, forgetting myself. The Reverend Mother's eyes widen. But I don't care. "Please, Reverend Mother, there are other postulants," I say. "What about Sister Angela?"

The Reverend Mother shakes her head.

"I can't do this. I don't want to go out there!"

"Maria, we are not asking you to leave forever."

"It's almost a year. It might as well be an eternity!" The feeling of losing control spins around inside of me. Tears fall onto my robes and the Reverend Mother holds out her hands across the desk. When I take them, the skin feels papery and thin. We sit this way for some time as I will myself to be calm. But the tears keep falling.

Eventually, the Reverend Mother rises from her desk and comes to stand next to me. Her voice is soft and soothing when she says, "Tell me why you became a postulant."

"To serve God," I say, wiping my tears.

"Well, God is calling you now to this Captain. We've never had this sort of request. Just as we've never had a postulant like you."

I look over to see if this is a criticism, but there's only kindness in the Reverend Mother's face.

"You were an orphan before you came to us, is that right?"

I wipe away my tears with two quick swipes of my hand. "Yes."

"So the idea of leaving another family must make it even harder for you."

I don't want pity, not even from the Reverend Mother, but I respond, "Because I know what happens when people are sent away."

The Reverend Mother sits back and considers this statement. "And is this what you think is happening?"

My eyes are drawn to the only window in the parlor, and I realize that it is hung with the same lace curtains Mutti used to have. I trace the scalloped edges in my mind and hear her voice. All of their voices. But especially his. Loud and violent and threatening.