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

by Kate Hewitt

  The next week she met him outside the cinema, and they watched Under Burning Heavens, although Birgit could barely follow the story, so aware was she of Werner sitting next to her—the smell of his aftershave, the sprawl of his legs, the way his elbow brushed hers when she dared to put her own on the armrest. Every nerve jangled and she made a great pretense of watching the film as the words washed over her without meaning.

  Afterwards, Werner suggested they go out for a drink, but as much as Birgit was tempted to, she made herself decline. She’d told her parents she was going out to the cinema with a friend from school, and that had felt like too much deception already. She supposed she would have to tell them about Werner… if he asked to see her again.

  And he did, after he’d walked her home, stepping closer with deliberate intent while Birgit had gone completely still, and then he brushed his lips against hers, smiling faintly as he stepped back.

  “Perhaps I can see you after Christmas, before I go back to Innsbruck.”

  “Ye—yes, that would be nice.” She blinked up at him, and he kissed her again.

  “Goodnight, Birgit.”

  She tottered inside in a daze, her head swimming from the kiss as if she’d drunk the finest wine, everything inside her buzzing. Everyone was in the sitting room, listening to the radio, when she came in.

  “Ah, Birgit!” As ever, her father looked smilingly pleased to see her. “How was the cinema?”

  “It was very good, Papa, thank you.”

  “What film did you see?” Johanna asked, and Birgit thought she sounded a bit suspicious.

  “Under Burning Heavens.”

  “Was it interesting?”

  “It was all right,” Birgit said, turning away. “But I’m tired now. I think I’ll go to bed.”

  As she undressed for bed, she considered why she was so reluctant to tell her family about Werner. Surely there was no need to be so secretive—he was from a good family, or at least she thought he must be, since he lived in Aigen, which was one of the best areas of Salzburg. He was a soldier, which was nothing to be ashamed of, and she’d discerned that evening when she’d asked him about Christmas, that he was Catholic. So why wasn’t she proudly telling everyone that she had an admirer, a beau?

  Then she thought of his easy assurance about Hitler, his casual dismissal of the Jews. She imagined her father’s reaction to his seemingly reasonable words, and something in her clenched with both fear and shame. But he’s so nice… and he likes me. He kissed me… he must think I’m pretty, and no one ever has before.

  Birgit gazed at her reflection and she forced herself to examine her face dispassionately—the round cheeks, the smallish eyes, the mousy blond hair. But despite all that… there was a glow to her face, a secretive curve to her lips… Could Werner really find her pretty?

  Amazingly, it seemed he did. She thought of the way he’d looked at her, the warmth in his eyes, his gaze so lingering. Yet even so she had an innate fear that he might disappear from her life, like a trick or a dream. And as for his opinions about Hitler? That’s all they were—opinions. Ideas. He wasn’t a bad man.

  Still, Birgit knew, it was much better to keep him a secret, at least for now. Perhaps she’d tell her family when she knew Werner a bit more, when he’d made his intentions clear, if he had them. A thrill ran through her at the thought—she pictured herself wearing a white dress, with her hands full of flowers, in the doorway of St. Blasius, haloed by sunlight…

  Almost as quickly as she imagined the scene, she forced herself to banish it. There was no need to tempt fate or God with something like that. Something that might never happen, and yet, for the first time in her life, actually could.

  In January, after Christmas, still hugging her precious secret to herself, Birgit met Werner for a walk along the Salzach River, its fast-flowing waters bobbing with jagged chunks of ice. The air was frigid, an icy wind sweeping down from the Salzkammergut, and Birgit had bundled up well to walk alongside with Werner, who looked very smart in his Bundesheer uniform, his cap pulled down low on his head, a woolen scarf about his neck.

  “I head back to Innsbruck next week,” he told her as they walked along, arm in arm. “I’ll miss you.”

  “And I’ll miss you,” Birgit replied, meaning it more than she thought possible. She’d only seen him a few times, but already she felt transformed. When he looked at her with those admiring eyes, that warm smile, she felt as if she were expanding inside, as if she were glowing, and surely everyone would be able to see how radiant she was.

  “Will you write?” he asked, and pleasure unfurled inside her like a flower.

  “Yes, of course, if you want me to.”

  “I do.” He turned to gaze at her seriously as he held her hands in his. Birgit’s heart did a funny little flip. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be, but I’m glad the police raided that meeting. Otherwise I never would have met you.”

  Birgit let out an uneven little laugh. She did not want to talk or even think about that meeting. “I am as well, although I was terrified at the time.”

  He squeezed her hands, and then he leaned in to kiss her, before they continued walking, Birgit as if she were on air. She felt as if she could twirl down the pavement. He liked her. He really liked her. The snowy world shimmered with newfound possibility, ideas that had felt utterly distant now within wonderful reach.

  Dusk was gathering by the time he left her at the Mozartsteg, he to walk eastward to Aigen, while Birgit would walk across the bridge into the old town. Werner had wanted to walk her home, but she’d told him it was out of his way.

  “I almost think you are keeping me a secret,” he said, wagging his finger playfully, and Birgit blushed. He looked at her in surprise, dropping his teasing manner. “Are you?”

  “Not a secret, not exactly…” Birgit thought of her boasting to Johanna at Christmas. Her sister had been so disbelieving, it had stung even as it had been satisfying to see Johanna so disconcerted. As for the rest of her family—if Werner made one of his careless remarks about the Jews, she did not like to imagine their reactions.

  “The next time I come to Salzburg,” he insisted, “I want to meet your family.”

  “All right.” Birgit pictured herself ushering Werner into the house on Getreidegasse, slipping her arm proudly through his while her family watched, amazed, her sisters even a little envious. And as for his remarks about the Jews… well, he hadn’t said anything that bad, had he? “If you’re sure.”

  “I am.”

  “Very well, then. The next time.”

  She practically pranced along the Mozartsteg after they’d said goodbye, her heart overflowing with both wonder and joy at how kind he’d been, how tender and sure. Life looked entirely different than it had just a few weeks ago.

  “Birgit!”

  The sharp sound of someone calling her name, the way a schoolteacher might scold a pupil, made Birgit freeze in the middle of the pedestrian bridge, one hand resting on its iron balustrade. Slowly she turned around; Ingrid was striding towards her, her face pale, her eyes blazing, her coat flapping out behind her like the wings of a crow.

  “Ingrid—” Guilt flooded through Birgit as she saw the anger and judgment on the other woman’s face.

  “Why have you not come to any of our meetings?”

  “I…” Birgit trailed off, ashamed. She’d meant to go, but somehow, between meeting Werner and the busyness of Christmas, she’d let it all slip. She’d made herself not think of it, but it came rushing back now—the pamphlets, the police, the importance of it all. She knew that hadn’t changed.

  “I saw you with that soldier,” Ingrid continued, eyes narrowed. “What do you suppose is going to happen to him?”

  “Happen?” Birgit stared at her blankly, wondering if Ingrid was somehow threatening Werner. Had she somehow heard his remarks about the communists? They hadn’t been that offensive, surely.

  “When Hitler marches into Austria,” Ingrid explained impatiently, “your boyfriend
will become part of the Wehrmacht.”

  “What?” Birgit shook her head, refusing to consider that awful possibility even for a moment. “No.”

  “I always knew you were naïve, but I didn’t think you were stupid.” Ingrid took a step closer as she softened her tone. “Don’t you see? He’s part of the problem.”

  “He’s not,” Birgit exclaimed. “You talk as if he’s a Nazi.”

  “He will be, one day, if he’s not already.”

  “I don’t believe it. Werner wouldn’t—” She swallowed as she thought again of him warning her off the communists, his dismissive comments about the Jews. Still, he hadn’t been cruel. He hadn’t justified the kind of attacks like she’d seen on Janos. Besides, her father would have equally warned her off the communists, if he’d known. It certainly didn’t make anyone a Nazi.

  “I thought you cared,” Ingrid stated quietly. “Do you remember the knife grinder? The one you helped?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “And what about others like him? A little boy was beaten half to death on Judengasse last week, for no good reason. Did you know?”

  “No, I didn’t.” She suddenly felt near tears.

  “Do you care?” Ingrid demanded. “About any of it? Or were you just amusing yourself?”

  “I wasn’t,” Birgit protested, anger flaring. “I took risks—”

  “Who knows if you even distributed those pamphlets? Perhaps you just hid them under your bed.”

  She’d been tempted to do that just that, but she hadn’t. Birgit drew herself up. “You have no right to accuse me of such things. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. And if I haven’t come to any meetings, it’s because at the last one I was nearly arrested! I would have thought all of you would have wanted to lay low for a while.”

  “All of you? Or all of us?” Birgit hesitated, and Ingrid nodded slowly. “I see.”

  “No,” she protested, albeit a bit weakly. Guilt twisted her insides. She hadn’t been amusing herself, no matter what Ingrid had said in anger, and even now she remembered the sense of purpose, of rightness, distributing those pamphlets had given her. And yet…

  What about Werner?

  “Come to the next meeting,” Ingrid entreated, putting her hand on Birgit’s sleeve. “Don’t abandon us now. We need you more than ever.”

  “Why me?” Birgit asked a bit desperately. She felt herself being pulled in, drawn under, and she was both afraid to let it happen and yet still eager to prove herself to Ingrid.

  “Because we still need to unite. Communists. Socialists. Catholics. Your father was willing to work with us—”

  “He was?” She hadn’t really considered what her father had had to do with the communist group; the knowledge of his involvement had slipped to the back of her mind after the coffeehouse had been raided—and she’d met Werner.

  “Only in one instance,” Ingrid admitted. “And we helped him as much as he did us. But that is not important. What matters is accepting we need to work together. That is the only way to end fascism. To keep Hitler out of Austria.”

  “Yet you were speaking just now as if he has already marched across the border!”

  “I fear there is no way to stop him now, and yet I still want to try. We must.” Ingrid’s expression turned fierce as the cold wind blew her hair in dark tangles around her face. “‘He who fights can lose. He who doesn’t fight has already lost.’ That is Bertolt Brecht. The playwright. Do you know him?”

  Birgit shook her head.

  “Well,” Ingrid declared. “I want to fight. The question is, Birgit, do you?”

  Chapter Ten

  Lotte

  February 1937

  Lotte also had a secret, one she longed to share, yet she had never been able to find the right moment. Days passed in a flurry of music lessons she barely paid attention to, evenings in front of the radio or by the piano, snow falling and night closing in, and still she never found the time, or really the courage. And yet Easter drew closer, with the day the Mother Abbess had promised, when postulants could enter the order at Nonnberg, shimmering on the horizon.

  In late December Lotte had spoken to Father Josef at St. Blasius, her voice faltering at first, and then growing in conviction as she’d stammered about Nonnberg Abbey, and Maria von Trapp, the Mother Abbess, and her own possible vocation.

  “Do you think I could be a nun, Father?” she’d finished anxiously, her fingers knotted together as she’d perched on the edge of the hard chair in front of his desk, longing for his seal of approval.

  “Speak to your family, child,” Father Josef had said. “And pray. I will write to the Mother Abbess at Nonnberg.”

  “Then—” Lotte’s had stomach leapt as she’d leaned forward.

  Father Josef had nodded, smiling. “Think and pray.”

  That had been nearly two months ago, and somehow she had never found the time to speak to her parents, although she knew she could have easily enough. It was the courage she lacked, for she feared disappointing them, and worse, hurting them, more than anything.

  Then one afternoon in mid-February, when the snow heaped on the sides of the street had turned slushy and gray, and the air still held the damp frigidity of winter without even a breath of spring, her father read her term report from the Mozarteum, a frowning look of surprise on his face.

  “Lotte, Professor Paumgartner says here that you do not pay attention in your lessons. That you have some talent, but you do not seem willing to use it.” He lowered the letter, his eyebrows drawn together as he looked at her over the rim of his spectacles. “Is that true?” He didn’t sound angry, or even disappointed, but rather confused.

  The letter had come in the morning post, and Manfred was reading it at the kitchen table, while Hedwig and Johanna had gone out to do the shopping. Birgit and Franz were both working down in the shop, and Lotte was about to head to her first lesson. She stopped in the doorway, her hands fluttering by the buttons of her coat as she gazed at her father unhappily.

  “I… I suppose it is, Papa.”

  “Why is this?” He laid the letter on the table as he gazed at her steadily, without judgment, but wanting to understand. “Do you not enjoy the lessons, haschen?” He hadn’t used that old endearment—bunny—in years. Tears came to Lotte’s eyes.

  “I…” She hesitated, knowing there was no other way to answer, and yet how had she not foreseen this moment? She’d been so cowardly, she realized, in continuing with lessons that cost so much money when she didn’t enjoy them and she knew she wasn’t good enough. She hadn’t wanted to disappoint her father, but having him realize she’d been lying to him would be even worse. “It’s so competitive, Papa,” she confessed in an unsteady rush. “And everyone else is so talented. I know I’m not going for an actual degree, but I just don’t have that kind of ambition, or the ability. I’m sorry.”

  Her father was silent for a long moment. He looked down at the letter on the table, his face drawn into a regretful frown. “It is I who should be sorry,” he said at last. “I fear I pushed you into these lessons, Lotte, for the sake of my own pride.” He shook his head slowly as he looked up at her with a smile glinting in his eyes. “Who knew that a man could be so foolish at my age?”

  “Oh Papa, you’re not foolish,” Lotte cried. “I should have told you sooner. I just didn’t want to disappoint you—”

  “Disappoint me? Never, Lotte.” He smiled and held out his arms. “Come here and embrace your foolish old father.”

  Lotte rushed into his arms, resting her head against his shoulder. He smelled of pipe tobacco and Pitralon, the pine-scented aftershave he bought from his barber. As she put her arms around him she realized afresh how slight he was, how frail. He patted her on the back and she closed her eyes.

  “I never meant to make you do something you didn’t want to do, haschen,” he said softly. “Shall we stop these lessons?”

  “Yes, Papa, if you please.” Slowly Lotte withdrew from the embrace and stepped
back from her father. “But there is something else.”

  He studied her for a moment, his head tilted to one side. “Something else?”

  She had not wanted to say it like this—alone in the kitchen, caught in an unexpected moment, unprepared. She had pictured a grand announcement around the dining room table, hands clutching chests as everyone stared at her in surprise and then dawning admiration.

  Again Lotte felt shamed by her own secret pride—what a stupid fairy tale she persisted in weaving! She had delayed the announcement because some part of her knew it would never be like that.

  “What is it, Lotte?” Manfred asked gently. “You can tell me.”

  “I…” She gazed at him, torn between hope and fear. “I believe I have a vocation, Papa,” she whispered.

  Manfred sat back in his chair, the kindly amusement glinting in his eyes was somehow hurtful. Little Lotte, having a vocation? Even she could see the absurdity of it.

  “Oh?” he said. “And what is it?”

  “I… I want to enter the religious life.” Lotte lifted her chin as she met her father’s gaze directly. “I wish to be a nun.”

  “A nun!” Manfred stared at her, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Then he let out a huff of laughter that was not unkind. “When did you decide this?”

  “I’ve been praying about it for some time,” Lotte answered with dignity. “I spoke with the Reverend Mother at Nonnberg Abbey, and also with Father Josef. He wrote to her, to recommend me as a postulant.”

  “I see.” Her father’s expression of good-natured bemusement turned to something more studious and sorrowful, as he regarded her quietly for a few moments. “This is serious, then.”

  “Yes.”

  Another moment passed while Lotte waited, everything in her tensed and expectant.

  “Nonnberg is Benedictine,” he remarked finally. “It would be a cloistered life.”