Frau Schichtl came home early that day. She brought a pile of text-books and note-books. The Kasal girl accompanied her to the door, helping her to carry the slipping load of books. The girl didn’t follow Frau Schichtl indoors. She stood hesitating, speaking a few words in her quiet voice. And Frau Schichtl didn’t invite her to come in. She wasn’t even talking very much. All she said was, “Thank you, Katharina.”
The girl spoke again, but her voice was too low for Lennox to catch the meaning of her words. All he could hear was the soft lilt of a girl’s voice. It was the first girl’s voice he had heard in two years. He moved to the window and watched her walking slowly towards the Kasal farm. She was older than he had thought, but perhaps that was because she was now walking gravely with her head slightly bowed. Before, he had always seen her hurrying, generally running. She was wearing her shoes, and didn’t even seem to notice that the mud was ruining them. He didn’t need to hear the clatter of the books, which Frau Schichtl let fall on the kitchen table, to realise something was wrong.
He turned from the window, and left the fair-haired girl with the strong young body walking over the green fields. Frau Schichtl’s face was white: the bright colour had gone, leaving two small pink daubs on her cheeks where the red veins were broken. Paul Mahlknecht put aside his pipe carefully.
“Well, Frieda?” he asked.
Frau Schichtl sat on the bench. She folded her hands tightly on her lap. Her lips were in a bitter line.
“No more school,” she said, in a low voice.
“Yes?” Mahlknecht’s quiet question urged her on.
Suddenly she was speaking quickly, angrily.
A man had been appointed teacher of the school. He was Heinrich Mussner, the same Mussner who had left for the North Tyrol in 1939. He had come back to Hinterwald last week. Last night Germans had come from Kastelruth. They had come to see that everyone was happy in Hinterwald. That was their story. They called a meeting to discuss how Hinterwald could be improved. The meeting became merely an intimation that as this district was now incorporated into the Reich, the school would have to be better managed. The woman volunteer must go: she had been a pupil-teacher in 1917, it was true, but that was too long ago. Someone with more recent experience must be chosen. A man must be chosen. Volunteers for the job were asked. And before the slow-moving, astounded villagers had begun to understand the meaning of this move Heinrich Mussner had volunteered. He had been accepted.
“And what teaching has he ever done?” Mahlknecht demanded.
“Seemingly he has been learning to teach in these last five years.”
“Aye,” her brother said grimly. “We can make a guess at what he has been learning to teach.”
Frau Schichtl closed her eyes wearily. “Anyway, he’s in. And I’m out. The Germans left after the meeting. But they are setting up a police station, too. German policemen are arriving tomorrow. And there is to be a German postmaster. And next week more people are returning from the North Tyrol. People like Mussner who left in 1939. They are going to run this village. I can see that.”
“Mussner... Well, at least we know now where he stands,” Mahlknecht said. He picked up his pipe again, and studied the bowl thoughtfully. “We are supposed to be such fools that we really believe Mussner just happened to volunteer. We are supposed not to see that the whole meeting was an obvious German manoeuvre, so that Mussner wouldn’t seem the German choice.” He smiled grimly. “And so we would not distrust or hate him.”
Frau Schichtl rose and went to the table. She began arranging her books on a shelf along the wall. “Where’s Johann?” she asked.
“I sent him to the houses of the Committee with some information. He should be back soon.”
“Anything wrong?” Frau Schichtl asked sharply. “Come, Paul, you don’t have to pretend with me. Something is wrong.” She turned to look at Lennox, and then at the kitchen, as if her answer might be found there. She noticed, for the first time, the dried mud on the sitting-room floor. She walked slowly towards it.
“Oh, Paul!” she said in dismay. “I scrubbed it only yesterday afternoon.” Then all her postponed emotion broke. She began to cry.
“Now, Frieda,” Mahlknecht was saying uncomfortably, “we’ll scrub it for you today. I’ll tell you what happened as soon as you are a sensible woman again. Perhaps this rest from school will be good for you. You’ve been doing too much.”
“I have not.” Frau Schichtl’s tears were in control, but her temper was ragged. It was the first time that Lennox had seen her anything but calm and capable. Somehow she was all the more human. “I have not. None of us have. We’ve done too little. We let the Germans appoint this and that. We do nothing but plan for the future. What good is that to us now?”
“The Germans have the machine guns and we have not,” her brother said patiently. “We are a small collection of people. We are farmers. We have no factories, no machines to help us. We can’t make arms. We’ve stolen some from derailed trains, and from the Italians’ barracks. But we haven’t enough yet. If we use them now we’d be wiped out within a week. What good would we be then to the Allies or to ourselves? All we can do is to wait, to have our plans well made, to be ready. Then we can help in the fighting when the Allies are coming up towards the Brenner. There will be plenty of fighting and dying then, Frieda. But it will be useful fighting and useful dying. Ask Peter, here, if you don’t believe me.”
Frau Schichtl was silent. And then she said sadly, “I don’t need to ask him. I just get so tired of waiting, that’s all. And I get worried. Everything seems to be going wrong.” She looked at Lennox. “He’s unhappy: he wants to leave. And Johann is seeing too much of that girl. He went to see her yesterday before he came home, and that’s why he arrived only half an hour before you did, this dawn. He should have been here yesterday. And now this school business. The children will be questioned about their families, and their minds will be poisoned. They will be told the wrong things.”
“What girl are you talking about?” Mahlknecht asked.
“Eva Mussner. Mussner’s niece. She was in Bozen for the last five years, Johann saw her there. Now she’s come back to Hinterwald. She opened up her uncle’s house. She’s staying there.”
“Eva Mussner,” Paul Mahlknecht said thoughtfully. “A skinny little thing with straight hair, if I remember.”
“She is hardly that now,” Frau Schichtl answered tartly. “She met me in the village today. She was very upset about what happened. So she said.”
There was a pause. Mahlknecht was lost in his thoughts.
“What was it you were going to tell me,” Frau Schichtl asked at last, “about that mess of mud on my best sitting-room floor?”
“We had two visitors this morning. American flyers.”
Frau Schichtl glanced at the ceiling. “They are sleeping now, I suppose.”
“No. We sent them away.” Mahlknecht began to light his pipe. “We don’t think they were Americans, although they were dressed correctly. We think they are Germans.”
“But, Paul, what if they aren’t?” Frau Schichtl was roused once more. “How could you be so sure?”
“They said their plane had crashed many miles away, and that explained why they could arrive without us hearing their plane. But the houses are scattered so much over the Schlern that someone must have heard and seen the crash. And when flyers are dragged from their planes or are found wandering near them our rule is that someone accompanies them to the places where they can get a guide out of the mountains. They said a house had sheltered them near where they had crashed. But no one had been sent with them to prove to us that they had crashed. That made me wonder. The only men who would come as quietly and unannounced as they did would have been men who had parachuted on to the Schlern. That is what I thought they were when I went downstairs to meet them: but they didn’t ask for Peter or for me, and they didn’t give any of the right identifications. So I called Johann and Peter downstairs just to make sure that they were Americans. The slightest doubt, and we couldn’t help them. Peter found a doubt.” Mahlknecht began to laugh. He threw back his head as he had done when Lennox had first explained his trick, and his teeth were white against the dark beard. He was explaining it now, all over again. Frau Schichtl smiled too, and then a new worry appeared.
“If they were Germans, and you called Peter down here so that they could see him...” Frau Schichtl began. “Paul, how could you!”
“He didn’t talk English, Frieda. In fact, he gave a good imitation of old Schroffenegger’s style of conversation.”
Lennox grinned self-consciously. He had often watched Josef Schroffenegger, one of the Committee men who came up to visit Frau Schichtl on Saturdays, with a good deal of amusement. Now that he considered it, he had given a sizable imitation of the old warrior.
“What else could I have done, Frieda?” Mahlknecht went on. “I had to know if these men were real Americans. It was logical to believe that Peter would know more about judging them than we do. He has fought and lived beside them. And our risk did work. He did find out.”
“Then they will blame him.”
“No. I took care to do all the deciding. It is I whom they will blame. Anyway, all they can report is that we refused to help American flyers.”
Lennox said, “Won’t the Germans expect us to report these flyers?”
Mahlknecht smiled. “That is a good idea,” he said. “But perhaps it is too good. The Germans might begin to wonder why we were suddenly so helpful. The only informers they have found are people like Mussner, and the Germans know them all. From the rest of us, they may not expect actual trouble, but they have learned this winter not to expect help either. They think we are a slow, pig-headed, selfish lot of peasants. They think we are inefficient and lazy. Unbiddable thickheads. No, we don’t have to worry about reporting to the Germans. It would seem out of character.” He smiled again, encouragingly, as he watched the younger man’s face. “It was a good idea, well worth suggesting,” Mahlknecht added. “We would have used it, if the Germans weren’t so convinced that people fall into rigid classifications.”
Frau Schichtl wasn’t listening to this explanation. She was still worrying about two particular Germans. She asked impatiently, “So you sent Johann to warn the Committee? Do you think there will be more trouble?”
“We shall have to keep our eyes open. For if the Germans chose this house for their trick then they had some suspicion.”
“Suspicion.” The cold word set Frau Schichtl’s face into a mask.
“Yes. Kasal’s farm would have been a better place to find food or to hide. A farm has always more food than a cottage; it has outbuildings and barns. Yet they chose this house.”
Frau Schichtl was silent. And then, looking at Lennox, she said, “What about Peter?”
Mahlknecht walked over to the window. “Roads are bad,” he said, “but this part of the hillside always did trap most water. Can’t judge by it. Most roads will be drying up by another week, and there are some parts of the woods that are passable even now. Schönau, for instance. I think Schroffenegger’s lumber camp at Schönau will have to open early this spring. Schroffenegger has got his men all selected for it: we can trust each one of them. Peter will join them there. Ever cut down trees, Peter?” Lennox shook his head.
“Good for you. Gives you exercise. Makes you fit.”
They heard Johann’s cheery whistle. He came in with high good humour. “Everything’s all right,” he said. “They must have been Germans. Didn’t try any other houses. I saw all the local Committee, and they are keeping watch.”
“You didn’t see that Mussner girl, did you?” Frau Schichtl said.
Johann’s smile faded. “What’s she got to do with the two flyers?” he asked, defensively.
“Frieda, let me deal with this my way,” Mahlknecht said, almost sharply. “Come on, Johann, lend us a hand with the scrubbing of this floor. You came just in time to help us clean it up. Your mother can start cooking dinner. We’ll have it early, today. There’s a lot of talking to be done, tonight.”
Frau Schichtl’s hands went to her mouth. “I almost forgot,” she said. “The Committee is coming up here this evening.”
“And tomorrow at dawn there is the spring festival in Hinterwald.” Mahlknecht looked thoughtfully at his sister. “I wonder if the Germans timed their interest in our village just to coincide with our feast-day. They know the people from miles around will be coming to Hinterwald tomorrow.”
“Rubbish,” Frau Schichtl said. “It is just the Germans being Germans. They always were too officious. They like making regulations and rules.” She was tying on her large white apron over the small silk one which was part of her dress. She began to measure a meagre quantity of flour into the large mixing-bowl for the soup’s dumplings.
“Not so much rubbish,” Mahlknecht said quietly. “You don’t like the Germans, Frieda, but you don’t know how they work. They’ve done things you couldn’t believe just because you have lived among normal people most of your life. I am willing to wager that they chose our feast-day for some reason. They know that everyone will be there. They will have us all gathered together like a flock of sheep.”
“A feast-day is a holy day,” Frau Schichtl said. “Only heathens would cause trouble then.” Her voice was indignant. Her hands kneaded the dough vigorously.
Mahlknecht shrugged his shoulders. “I can feel the screw going on,” he said quietly. “That’s all.”
“I wonder just how much suspicion they have,” Lennox said. “They may have discovered that there is active opposition here, even if it is hidden.”
“Perhaps,” admitted Mahlknecht. “And perhaps it is only the news which is worrying them.”
“What news?” Lennox asked. For the last two nights it had been impossible to hear Allied broadcasts. There had been atmospherics and much interference. “What news?”
“The Brenner railway has been bombed. There has been a very thorough job. I left Bozen in flames two days ago. The German supply system has been wrecked. And the Allied push into Italy has begun.”
Frau Schichtl stopped her work. She stared unbelievingly at her brother.
It’s begun, Lennox kept thinking; at last it has begun. He said, “And no one has yet come here. The colonel didn’t get through.”
“On the contrary, he did. He sent some men to see me in Bozen. We have our plans all made, don’t worry about that.”
“And what about the men who were coming here?”
“They are coming. Any day now. Why the devil did you think I came to Hinterwald? Why the devil did I nearly break my neck this morning getting down those stairs?” Mahlknecht halted, looked at his sister and Lennox. “What’s wrong with both of you?” he demanded. “Jumpy as a couple of cats. Filled with worries. Don’t you trust me or our Allies? What do you think we are, anyway? A bunch of newly born lambs?”
Lennox smiled at that. “We’ve stopped worrying,” he said. “If things have really started moving then we’ve stopped worrying. We’ll have plenty to do instead.”
Frau Schichtl was smiling too. “It’s begun,” she said happily. And then the smile vanished. She brushed some flour off her forearm. “I am glad. I am glad and I’m sorry. Sorry for the men who will die.” She looked as if she were going to cry again. She began pummelling the small handfuls of dough as if they were Germans. “Why couldn’t they leave everyone alone? Why couldn’t they stay in their Germany? What’s wrong with them?” Her voice was angry now. She slapped the dumplings into the pot of thin soup. “And I’ve probably ruined these. I’ve probably put in salt twice over.” She suddenly hurried out of the kitchen and climbed the stairs to her room.
Mahlknecht ignored all this, although his face was grave as he gave Lennox his answer.
“Plenty to do,” he said briefly, and turned to look out of the window at the green fields.