The Edelweiss Sisters: An epic, heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 novel

by Kate Hewitt

  “For example, Fräulein, you might find it difficult to relinquish seeing your family.”

  Lotte swallowed. “Would I not be able to see them at all?” It was not something she had considered in all her vague daydreaming.

  “If you were accepted as a postulant, you would not see them for the six months of your postulancy, or the following year or two of your novitiate, except at the service when you are clothed as a novice. From then on you would see them only rarely, and only when they came to visit you at the abbey.” She smiled in sympathy, and Lotte realized how troubled she must look. “This is to keep you from distraction or temptation, especially early on in your life here, when the world, with all its attachments, may still hold you in its thrall. A sister gives up all her earthly pleasures, Fräulein, even those of relationships, so she can devote herself ever more fully to God.”

  “I see.” Lotte looked down at her lap.

  “It would be a cold-hearted woman who did not respond to these conditions with some amount of grief,” the abbess told her. “And there are other considerations, as well. For example a sister may not own any personal possessions. She does not look in a mirror, for that feeds her vanity. And, of course, we follow the Benedictine rule of silence—to speak as little as possible, and only when necessary, and never during the Great Silence, between compline in the evening and mass the next morning. These are only a few of the instructions we follow, according to the Rule of Saint Benedict.” She smiled while Lotte suddenly found herself blinking back tears.

  Had she known all of that? She thought perhaps she had, in a distant sort of way, but it felt very real now, and yet more out of reach than ever.

  “Forgive me if I am speaking out of turn,” the abbess continued after a moment, “but some young women approach the idea of the religious life with a sort of romanticism in their minds. They dream of serenity and holiness without realizing those attributes are hard won and come at a high price. The religious life is one of painful sacrifice, costly obedience, deliberate humiliation. Only those who are truly called to it will be able to bear the heavy load that is asked of them.”

  “Yes,” Lotte whispered, because she could think of nothing else to say.

  The abbess tilted her head to one side as her kindly yet shrewd gaze swept over Lotte. “If God is indeed calling you to this life, Fräulein, then you will not be able to ignore His voice. What begins as a whisper will start to feel like a shout—and an irresistible beckoning to go deeper in.” She paused while a thrill went through Lotte, a delicious expectation, a tremor of both hope and fear at what might still be to come.

  “And if He is not calling you,” the abbess continued in the same gentle yet firm voice, “then that first whisper will become fainter and fainter, until you cannot hear it at all, and, by God’s grace, you will let it go completely, without even feeling a loss.”

  Lotte’s lips trembled as she tried to smile. “Yes, Reverend Mother, I can see how that would be.”

  “Go well, my child,” the abbess said, and Lotte realized she was being dismissed, kindly as the woman’s tone was.

  “Thank you for your time,” she murmured, rising from the chair. The abbess nodded, and Lotte fumbled for the door. As she left the room, the nun from the porter’s lodge swooped down on her, reminding her more of a black crow than an angel of mercy.

  She inclined her head, saying nothing, and Lotte was reminded of the Mother Abbess’s description of unnecessary speech. If she came here, would she get used to saying so little? In some ways it would be a relief. Never have to fill a silence, but simply to let it be.

  “Thank you, Sister,” she said as she headed outside, and then wondered if she should have said even that.

  Outside dusk was falling along with snow, the world as quiet and still as a photograph. Lotte stood once again at the top of the Nonnbergstiege and breathed in the crisp air, snowflakes falling softly onto her cheeks.

  The rooftops of the old town were covered in snow as darkness drew in. From up here she couldn’t hear the usual sounds of the city—trams and buses, cars and calls of peddlers or newspaper boys. As she started down the steps, the clouds parted and the last of the sun’s fading light revealed itself in one perfect shining ray. Lotte caught her breath. Could this be a sign?

  She closed her eyes, everything in her both straining and still, yearning for that faint yet clear whisper that would tell her the way. Yet as she waited, the cold seeping through her shoes and numbing her fingers, all she heard was the sweep of the wind on the snow as the last of the light left the sky.

  Chapter Eight

  Johanna

  Johanna loved Christmas. She loved the snow that blanketed the city, making everything clean, and she loved how the usually mundane tasks of the household became imbued with a festive and even sacred purpose.

  Along with the heavy, dark furniture, her mother had brought many of the old folk traditions from the Tyrol, and when Johanna and her sisters had been children, they had followed them all with great delight—the advent wreath made of fir twigs and adorned with four thick wax candles, hung from the ceiling in the middle of the living room, a candle lit for every Sunday in Advent. They had written letters to the Christ Child, confessing their transgressions and making promises for the new year.

  On the sixth of December they had been visited by Saint Nikolaus with his miter and bishop’s staff, followed by the terrible Krampus, the black devil with the long red tongue who took away naughty children if Saint Nikolaus let them. They’d been given sweet bags—never switches, which were only for the truly bad children—and they’d never been carried away by the Krampus, usually a neighbor dressed up in a mask and black cloak whom Johanna remembered as being deliciously terrifying.

  Although there were no longer any children in the house, there was still much to be celebrated. Johanna and Hedwig had weaved together fir twigs for the advent wreath, and they’d gathered as a family under it every Sunday to read the Gospel and light a candle, to Franz’s kindly bemusement, Johanna couldn’t help but notice.

  Since that day on the Untersberg when he had almost kissed her and then told her he didn’t believe in God, Johanna had not known how to act, or even how to feel. While she was as fascinated by Franz as ever, the sheen of his attention had lost of a little of its glinting promise, for she had realized her parents could never countenance her marriage to a non-Catholic. Of course, she’d known he wasn’t a Catholic since he’d first arrived in the little house on Getreidegasse, with his talk of philosophy and his declining of Communion. She’d known that, but she hadn’t felt it, hadn’t let herself consider their attachment getting that far.

  But when he’d almost kissed her, and he’d given her such a burning look, she’d realized, in a moment of deep dismay, that it could go nowhere. She did not want to merely flirt, as thrilling as that could feel at the time.

  And so she’d ended up avoiding Franz when she could, all the while feeling as drawn to him as she’d ever been, so that he’d sometimes give her a puzzled and even hurt look, his eyes asking a silent question: Why are you doing this? Johanna never answered it, but merely looked away, her mind a ferment, caught between pride, caution, and desire.

  She made sure they were never alone, which was easy enough, and although she still turned the pages of his music—a pleasure she was yet loath to relinquish—she did not stand so close, and her fingers never brushed his, accidentally or otherwise. All in all, it was a most dissatisfying state of affairs.

  The weeks before Christmas were busy enough that Johanna did her best not to spare too many unhappy thoughts for Franz Weber. There were lebkuchen to bake, and Spanischer Wind, and marzipan figures for the tree. There were Christmas clothes to sew and darn, and the house to clean from top to bottom; her mother was a more demanding housekeeper than ever on the high holy days.

  And yet still there was Franz. Franz sitting at the table, his knees barely fitting under it, his hair so unruly. Franz giving her that crooked smile,
a bemused look in his eyes, or playing the piano so beautifully that Johanna could have wept. Franz settling into bed every night while Johanna lay in her own bed and listened to the creaks of the floorboards above with an ache in her heart.

  One evening, as she’d been going up to bed, he’d caught her wrist in the corridor.

  “Why are you avoiding me?” he’d asked in a low voice, his look as burning as ever.

  “I’m not—”

  “You are. Don’t dissemble, Johanna. You’re too honest for that.”

  She’d glanced at the doorway of the sitting room, where everyone else was still assembled. “Franz—”

  “I like you,” he’d said in his easy, open way. “You know I do. And I thought you liked me.”

  “I do,” she’d replied, because he was right, she was too honest.

  “Then…?”

  She’d stared at him helplessly, knowing he deserved an explanation and yet unable to give one, at least not here in the hall, where anyone could overhear. “I’m sorry. I can’t,” she’d whispered, and she’d pulled away from him, hurrying up the stairs to her bedroom.

  On the twenty-third of December, as was tradition, they decorated the Christmas tree with marzipan figures, gilded nuts, apples and tangerines. They festooned wax candles, nearly a hundred of them, all over its green, spreading boughs, along with chains of ribbon and tinsel, although the candles would not be lit until Christmas Eve.

  “Have you ever decorated a Christmas tree before, Franz?” Lotte asked with a little laugh; she had become fascinated with his utter ignorance of such traditions, intent on explaining them to him, as if that would somehow make him believe.

  “I have not,” Franz replied in his relaxed way, “although I have certainly seen a fair few. Yours is particularly beautiful, I think.”

  “And you will come with us to mass on Holy Eve?” Lotte asked, and Johanna wished she wouldn’t push so much. She made the difference between their family and Franz all the more stark.

  “Yes, if you’ll have me,” Franz replied cheerfully. “Can a heathen go to mass on Holy Eve?”

  “That is when a heathen should go to mass most of all,” Lotte answered seriously, and Johanna couldn’t keep from rolling her eyes.

  “Oh, Lotte, enough. You sound as saintly as a nun!”

  Lotte remained silent, and Johanna felt guilty for scolding her.

  “Well, then, I will go and gladly,” Franz replied. “I do find the prayers and singing quite beautiful.” He glanced meaningfully at Johanna, as if this level of devotion should impress her, and she made herself look away, because she did not know if it did.

  The Holy Eve mass was beautiful, as it always was, the church filled with candles people held to read their hymnals by. As they sang “Tauet Himmel den Gerechten,” the music rising to the rafters, Johanna closed her eyes and offered a wordless prayer to God, one that came from the depths of her being and yet she could not articulate.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw her father giving her a gently quizzical look, and she tried to smile, although in truth she felt near tears.

  She had already said her confession, stammering out her usual sins to their sympathetic priest, when what she knew she should have said was I have fallen in love with a man whom I know is unsuitable. What would the priest have said then? How many Hail Marys would she have had to say as penance?

  After Holy Mass, the children in the congregation went to the side altar, where a miniature model of the whole town of Bethlehem had been spread out—the shepherds with their flock, Mary and Joseph in their shelter. The manger, of course, was empty, as it would be until that night. As ever, there was a sense of expectation in the air, a hope long deferred but finally approaching. It never failed to lift Johanna’s spirits, and yet tonight she struggled to feel that age-old wonder. She felt closer to despair.

  Back at the house, after mass, they waited for Manfred to ring the bell to symbolize the start of Christmas. Together they gathered in the sitting room, the tree ablaze with candles, to sing “Silent Night” and exchange greetings and gifts, and through it all Johanna felt closer to sorrow than joy. She could not bear to look at Franz—his dark hair glinting in the candlelight, his ready smile, his easy laugh—and yet she could not keep from looking. Every so often his eyes met hers, and they seemed to ask a gentle question. Johanna always looked away first.

  “Frohe Weihnachten,” Manfred exclaimed, kissing his daughters’ cheeks in turn before he put his arms around Hedwig, who laughed and blushed like a girl. There could be no doubting her father’s love for his wife, Johanna thought, not for the first time. Her mother, with her dour ways and steadfast work, was still the golden apple of her father’s eye. It gave her a pang of both hope and longing, that one day a man might feel that way about her, for in truth wasn’t she like her mother in so many ways—hardworking, sometimes silent, perhaps even a bit dour or at least stern?

  As they exchanged gifts, Johanna held her breath as Franz opened the handkerchiefs she’d embroidered for him, with his initials and a little sprig of edelweiss in the corner. As he opened the parcel, so clearly delighted by his gift, Johanna blushed, fearing it was far too personal a present, the kind of thing a woman would give her betrothed.

  “I thought you needed some more handkerchiefs,” she said, like an excuse. “Yours are forever getting dirty.”

  As Franz presented the family with a large, extravagant box of chocolates, wrapped with a red silk ribbon, Johanna realized she felt disappointed. She had hoped, and perhaps even expected, despite her recent coolness, a personal gift from him, but there was none. She told herself it was just as well as they ate their evening meal, and then retired to bed, the moon high in the sky, everyone sleepy and satisfied. Everyone but her.

  “Why are you so gloomy?” Birgit asked as they were undressing for bed.

  There had been, Johanna had noticed, an unaccustomed spring in her sister’s step for the last few weeks, a secretiveness to her smile… and yet what secrets could Birgit possibly have?

  “Why are you so cheerful?” Johanna returned sourly.

  “It’s Christmas—”

  “I sometimes wonder if you have a secret,” Johanna continued, determined to deflect her sister’s scrutiny. “Or even a beau.” Birgit’s smile turned smug, almost sly, and Johanna stilled, her hands to her hair as she’d been undoing it. “You don’t!” she exclaimed, and for a brief moment ire flashed in Birgit’s eyes.

  “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “But who is it?”

  Birgit just smiled and Johanna made a sound of impatience as she continued to undo her hair. What did it matter whom Birgit had fallen for? No doubt it was some unsuspecting shop boy who had done nothing more than throw her a smile. Recognizing the unkindness of her thoughts, she unbent a little. “You will have to tell me at some point,” she said lightly, “if it is to go anywhere.”

  “Just you wait,” Birgit replied. She was still smiling.

  The house settled softly around them as they both got into bed. Johanna lay flat on her back—her hair spread out on the pillow, her hands clasped at her waist like the staidest of matrons—as she stared at the ceiling, sleep impossible, her mind and heart both in an unhappy ferment.

  From upstairs she heard the creaks of Franz moving about in his bedroom, and she imagined him taking off his shoes, undoing his waistcoat, unbuttoning his shirt. She banished the images as quickly as they’d come, unbidden, into her mind.

  An hour passed, each second seeming to crawl by. The creaks from upstairs had quieted, and Birgit’s breathing evened out in sleep. Still Johanna stared at the ceiling, gritty-eyed, heavy-hearted. Moonlight streamed through the crack in the shutters and cast a slender silver beam across the wooden floor.

  Finally, after what felt like another age, Johanna swung her legs over the side of the bed and reached for her dressing gown. She inched her way down the darkened hallway to the sitting room, where the Christmas tree stood in all of its glory, the cand
les now snuffed out, the room holding the spicy smell of oranges as well as the remnant of candle wax. She didn’t know why she’d come in here, or what she expected to find, but her hand flew to her chest and a startled “oh!” escaped from her lips when she saw Franz sitting in the corner, gazing at the tree.

  “Hello, Johanna.” His voice held a hint of humor as well as of sadness, and as he spoke Johanna realized she’d come in hoping he would be here. Knowing he would.

  She clutched the folds of her dressing gown together with one hand as she made out his figure in the near darkness—he was still wearing his clothes, his shirt unbuttoned at the throat, his hair even unrulier than usual, making him look wilder and yet more approachable.

  “I thought you were asleep,” she said.

  “No.”

  “What… what are you doing here?”

  “Why are you avoiding me?” he countered. “Will you tell me this time?”

  “Franz—”

  “Come now, Johanna. You aren’t one to play games. Ever since Untersberg, you have been finding a way to keep from being alone with me. Are you going to tell me it isn’t true?”

  “No,” Johanna whispered after a pause. “I’m not.”

  “It’s because I’m not Catholic, isn’t it?” he stated. He made it sound like a small thing, something petty, and for a wild moment Johanna wondered if it was. If it could be.

  “You must realize,” she said after a moment, “how much our faith is a part of our family.”

  “Yes, I have realized.” Franz paused. “And I am moved by it. Logic seems a cold thing when it comes to matters of the heart. I’ve lived my life by science, but when we sang “Silent Night” tonight, I truly wished I could believe.” His smile, lopsided and wry, was barely visible in the darkness. “Does that count for something?”

  “I am glad, of course, but…” Johanna hesitated, pride making her not want to presume, and yet she knew she could no longer stay silent. “Franz, you must realize I could never marry someone who wasn’t a Catholic.” She flushed, grateful for the darkness that hid her scarlet cheeks. “I know I am presuming far too much, even to say such a thing, but I cannot see the point of… forming an attachment, considering.”