Chapter Five Maria

Chapter Five

Maria

1914

I'm sure it could have gone on this way for the rest of my life. But a year later, Mutti calls me from the kitchen table as I'm hurrying down the stairs with my guitar. There are tears running down from the corners of her eyes and her face is red. "Gusti," she begins, "I have terrible news."

My first thought is for her health and a sudden panic wells up inside me. But she's twisting her hands in her apron and shaking her head. "I know he seemed like such a healthy man for fifty-two. He was always eating well. I don't pretend to understand." Her watery eyes meet mine and she sobs, "Gusti, your father passed away yesterday."

The shock of it is so great I don't know what to say.

"There was no suffering," she promises. "He simply went to sleep and made his journey to the Kingdom of God."

This can't be happening. "I don't understand." He was supposed to teach me today.

"I know, liebling. " She reaches out to draw me close, but I pull away.

"I want to see him."

"You can't." She takes a white square from her sleeve and dabs at her eyes. "His housekeeper discovered his body and they've already taken him."

This is the news that breaks me. "Where?"

"To the leichenhalle. " The mortuary. She sobs again. "I'm so sorry."

I'm nine years old and for the first time I am really, truly an orphan. I think of his instruments lying silent in his library. And his beautiful, happy birds. "What will happen to everything in his apartment?" I ask.

"The birds will be taken care of," Mutti promises.

"But what about his books? His papers? His diaries?"

"Uncle Franz will take care of it. He is to become your guardian now."

As long as my father had been alive he had been my guardian, even if he lived a thousand kilometers away. But without him my guardianship must pass on to another male.

"He's making the arrangements right now," she says softly, then takes me in her arms. "It's all right," she promises as I cry. "We will always look after you."

—

The entire family is arranged around Mutti's dinner table, some in wooden chairs, others in the cushioned chairs dragged in from the parlor. There's Uncle Franz and Anni, Mutti and her youngest daughter, Kathy. Even Mutti's sons Alfred and Gustav are back from the city. Mutti has gone through a great deal of trouble to cook tafelspitz with minced apples, but I have no stomach for food. Uncle Franz, however, is already on his second plate when he begins to discuss what's to become of me.

"I sent word this morning to Karl at the university to tell him of what's transpired."

My heart leaps. Perhaps my older brother will become my guardian.

"Of course, he made no mention of wanting to oversee the raising of a half sister." I only have to take one look at Uncle Franz's face to know what he thinks about this. My older brother is obviously useless and now I am a burden. He chews the edge of his white mustache and fixes his eyes on me. "So I will take it upon myself to become this child's guardian."

Fear, like a giant hand squeezing my heart, makes me completely immobile. I want to protest, to ask if Uncle Pepi or some other distant relation might be able to step in. But there's a sad hum of agreement around the table and it's clear no one wants to disagree with Uncle Franz. Besides, if he is offering to take on this burdensome task why should anyone else fight to do it?

"I believe her father left her with a substantial sum," Mutti says.

Everyone at the table perks up at this.

"Yes. And it will be used to feed and clothe her until she can be married," Uncle Franz says firmly.

"But I don't want to be married!" I cry.

Six faces turn to look at me, as if everyone has forgotten I'm here.

"What you want is of absolutely no importance," my uncle rules. "Your father was a fool to raise a daughter with books and instruments. What use will they be to you now?"

"They'll keep me company," I say without knowing how true this will be in the years to come. "My father loved music."

"Your father was a very good man," Mutti says, laying a steadying hand on my lap. "May God rest his soul." She makes the sign of the cross and Uncle Franz sucks in the air through his teeth.

"A few things are about to change around here," he warns. His big fleshy cheeks have turned red. "There will be no more talk of God, for one."

Mutti gasps. This is her house, but without her husband she has as little say about any of this as I do.

"No more God, or Jesus, or the Bible—"

"Franz," my uncle Pepi interjects, "you don't think this is being too harsh?"

"The world is harsh! You want to bring up an orphan to believe that some invisible God will rescue her or do you want her to rescue herself? This child must work."

"But her father—" Aunt Anni begins.

Uncle Franz gives his wife a withering look.

"She works like the rest of us," he says darkly. "From now on she comes straight home from school to cook and clean. And if I catch her walking home with friends—"

"But I always walk with my friends!" I protest.

Uncle Franz glares. "You try it now and it will be the stick."

Mutti lets out a stifled cry and I look around the table to see who will come to my rescue. But no one meets Uncle Franz's gaze. His word is law in our house.

When my mother died I had been too young to understand what it would mean for me. But at nine years old I am big enough to imagine what life with Uncle Franz as my guardian will be like. That night I pray silently to God and ask Him to let me join my father. So it feels like a betrayal of the very worst kind when I wake the next morning in the same world I am so desperate to escape.

"Where is she?" I hear my uncle thunder from the bottom of the stairs, but his knees are bad and he is too heavy to come up and tear me out of bed himself.

"Gusti," Anni pleads from my bedside, "you have to go to school."

"I can't," I weep. I feel sick. And tired.

"Please." I can hear the nervousness in her voice. "I'll make you some breakfast. You'll feel better."

Uncle Franz starts shouting again. "If you don't get down here I'll come up and drag you out by your hair."

I sob. "I want to go to his apartment."

"Later," Anni promises.

But I don't believe her. "When?"

"As soon as you're back from school."

"But Uncle Franz said I have to come home."

"Then after you come home. Please." She pulls down my covers and I let her dress me. Uncle Franz is still waiting at the bottom of the stairs, glowering, as Anni and I make our way past.

"Do not give her any breakfast," he says.

Anni stares at him. "Her father just—" The slap he gives her is so swift I don't even see his hand move.

"I hate you!" I shout.

He lunges toward me and I run into the kitchen, where Mutti is stuffing food into my bag.

"That child is not to have anything!" he shouts, lumbering after me.

"Franz," Mutti says softly, "the child is still grieving. You of all people should understand this."

Whether he does or not, I don't know. I run the entire distance to school, afraid he might decide to drive his horse and carriage alongside me to make sure I haven't been slipped something to eat. It's only after I reach the schoolhouse that I open my bag. Mutti has packed my favorite breakfast. Bread with cheese and fig jam.

I sit on the stoop and eat, too upset to pay attention to the kids passing by. Our schoolhouse is tucked into the side of a hill. It overlooks a small trickling stream that, in the warm weather, is surrounded by wildflowers, but the entire world seems joyless now. When the school bell starts to ring I remain where I am. Finally, a teacher comes outside to fetch me.

In class, I explain what's happened to my father, and the other students are extra kind for the rest of the day. Helga offers me the best snack in her lunch and Therese gives me her pencil box, telling me she has another one. I don't want to take it, but she insists, and I run home, hoping to show it to Mutti. But as I step inside the door Uncle Franz is in the parlor.

"You were walking with friends, weren't you?"

I glance at Mutti, seated across from him with her sewing. "No! I didn't stop once," I swear.

"Then why are you late?" he thunders.

Mutti puts down her sewing. "Franz, it takes twenty minutes to walk from the school."

But he grabs the switch he has waiting beside him and Mutti jumps up from her rocking chair.

"What are you doing?" she shrieks as he raises the branch. But Uncle Franz can't hear her. He's deaf with a rage only he can understand.

—

That evening Mutti creeps up the stairs and sits at the edge of my bed while I weep. "I'm sorry, liebling. " She reaches out to caress my face, but I turn to the wall. "Let's pray—"

"To who? A God who doesn't listen? I don't want to pray now or ever again!"

Mutti weeps softly at the edge of my bed.

I run back from school the next afternoon, abandoning my friends and returning out of breath. It's the fastest I've ever come home. But Uncle Franz is waiting for me on the couch. There is no sign of Mutti.

To hear it from Uncle Franz, I am a liar, a thief, a good-for-nothing orphan taking up food and space in Mutti's house. So what's the point in coming home? If I'm going to be beaten for returning on time and telling the truth, why not just do whatever I please?

At first, I simply walk home with my friends. But Uncle Franz eventually catches wind of this and begins waiting for me in his carriage on the side of the road. Years later, I will be told of his mental illness, a sickness that would eventually lead to the loss of his position as a judge in Salzburg. But at nine, I know nothing about this. I only know the terror I feel the moment he jumps from his carriage and grabs my arm, sending my friends shrieking down the hill. Enough of them must tell their parents, because eventually they're forbidden to walk home with me. After this, I begin wandering the hills on my own, playing in the streams and gathering wildflowers.

Since I no longer care what happens to me, I begin behaving the same way in school. If a teacher asks us to pray, I challenge her. If she asks us to make a reference to something in the Bible, I laugh. After all, God has abandoned me, so why shouldn't I abandon Him? At lunch, my classmates are afraid to be seen with me. They don't want to be known to the teachers as "Gusti's friend." So I bring my guitar and my music keeps me company. It also reminds me of my father.

Then a wonderful thing happens when I am twelve years old. A girl named Adele moves to our school and is brave enough to walk home with me. She has coppery hair and cornflower-blue eyes. In the summer we play in the streams until it grows dark and in the winter we pretend we're elves scampering through the woods, making snow angels and snowmen until we can't feel our fingers.

Some nights, when I want to avoid Uncle Franz for as long as I can, I walk back with Adele to her tiny cottage. I think she understands my situation because hers was not much better until recently, when her father went to sleep with a bottle in his hand and never woke up. Needing to feed and care for seven children, her mother arranged for them to leave their home in Semmering and take up this cottage in Kagran. And from here she works as a laundress, scrubbing and cleaning until her hands are raw and peeling from the detergents.

One evening, when I'm thirteen, I run to Adele's mother in tears, convinced I am dying. There is blood between my thighs, and she is the one who explains to me that this is how it will be until I am too old to have children.

"Gusti, you're a woman now." She smiles, swatting a stray curl from her face. "You need to tell your foster mother to start buying you undergarments."

I am terribly embarrassed, but Adele's mother has no problem speaking about this. Not like Mutti, who simply hands me a cloth when my cycle begins again the next month. There are no explanations about why I am bleeding. Not even a talk about what it means.

But becoming a woman doesn't stop my uncle's beatings. He's a tyrant, threatening and belittling everyone in the house except Mutti. I hate the sound of his voice, the way he breathes through his nose whenever he's reading, and how he chews like a cow whenever he eats. If I believed in God I would be ashamed at the thoughts I have about what might happen to him. And the older I get, the worse the beatings become.

Then one day I am suddenly bigger than him. I snatch the stick from his hand and snap it in two. "You will never, ever hit me again!"

He rises from the chair and slaps my face, bloodying my lip. But at fifteen years old I am five foot eight and no one is going to hit me anymore. He raises his hand to slap me again and I charge, knocking him off balance. He crashes to the ground with such a noise that the rest of the house comes running.

Anni gives a muffled cry and Mutti's eyes go big and round. But I stand my ground and wait for Uncle Franz to make the next move.

"You will never, ever get another Krone from me as long as I live!" he shouts. Anni rushes to his side to help him and he pushes her away.

That night, I tell Mutti about my plans. It's becoming harder for her to make her way up the rickety stairs to my room. But I think she is afraid for me.

"I'm graduating in two months," I remind her. "I want to go to the State Teachers' College."

She massages her hands, which are bent in painful angles now. "Gusti, I don't know where the money will come from."

"I'll earn it," I say.

"How?"

"Adele's mother has a house in Semmering." Mutti recognizes the name. It's a famous resort town. "I'll take a job there for the summer," I tell her.

But there's worry in her eyes. "Your uncle will never allow it," she warns.

I take her crooked hands in mine. "Then he doesn't have to know."