smoke and mirrors (noun, metaphor): irrelevant or misleading information serving to obscure the truth
The door slammed shut behind her with a thud. Loneliness welled inside of her chest; her eyes were wet with unshed tears. With all the freedom in the world to do as she pleased—she could stay put at Nonnberg or leave it, find a new life—she had never felt so suffocated and trapped.
"Where to, Fräulein?"
Maria's head jerked up and she sat straight in the leather seat with a start. She opened her mouth to respond, but the words stuck in her throat. Her senses were inundated with the musty smell of old leather, of rain, of the stench of cigarette smoke that clung to the cabbie. She stared at the man, who was looking at her with the most unbearable expression of pity, kindness, and, worst of all, burning curiosity.
She looked down at her lap and nervously began to twist the fabric of the scratchy grey skirt between her fingers. "I… I…"
Those piercing blue eyes were gazing at her expectantly, and still she had no answer. Her breath caught, she swallowed, and shook her head.
No, no, this man had brown eyes, dark as night, and scruffy red hair and a beard, with a long, thin face.
"Guck mal, Fräulein, you gotta tell me where t'go."
Maria blinked. "You're not from here. Where are you from?" Her voice was unsteady, but at least she could form words. She pretended not to hear the long sigh of annoyance. "We don't say that, here. Gucken. And we wouldn't say it so peculiarly, either," she pressed.
"You're one to talk, ya sound more refined than ya are."
That comment stopped Maria's inquiries. It was just as well. He was right.
"Take me to Salzburg," she said in a monotone.
"Still need an address, Fräulein," he prompted. "Ain't startin' this engine without a destination."
Maria looked impatiently behind her at the towering von Trapp villa encased behind its walls. What had possessed her to get in this taxi in the first place? She could have walked faster, and it wouldn't have cost her anything but time and sore muscles. She had planned to walk. But he had seen her slip through the gates and had flashed his headlights at her. She hadn't wanted to approach at all, but when she tried to pass casually by, he had stuck his head out the window and asked after her. Tired of having to make choices, she had glared at him, hoping he could not make out her red eyes and nose, and had heaved her things into the back seat, following along behind them.
"Residenzplatz," she finally supplied.
"Right ya are," he said, starting the engine and pulling away.
Maria fought the urge to turn around again and watch the villa disappear into the distance, swallowed by darkness, until she couldn't even see its lit windows. What good would it do? She would only torture herself, imagining the children helping each other get ready for bed. They thought she was joining the party, so she wasn't expected. She would torture herself imagining the Captain's confusion when he realized that her place at the dinner table was empty. He would assume something was amiss with the children and let her alone, she decided. She wouldn't be missed aside from that. Max might make a fuss, but the Baroness, as far as Maria had gathered over the past week, had proved herself a master in distracting Max from his various annoying and harebrained schemes, especially when the Captain's eyes seemed to blaze fire and his nostrils flared.
Maria couldn't fathom what use she would be in trying to convince her employer to make a spectacle of his children. She did not even know if she thought it an appropriate idea, in all truthfulness. She just knew that many women had gone to greater lengths for far less, and she was not that kind of woman. Even if she wanted that, she in no way whatsoever possessed the guile and wherewithal, the air of mystery and complete and total control and awareness that it would take to be such a thing.
Some would call her too naïve, but she had come to call it honesty.
"I'm from the Rhine."
"What?"
"Ya asked where I come from, that's where I come from."
"Oh," Maria said. So, he was German. Normally, she would have parried back that "the Rhine" was not a sufficient answer. He could be from any number of places that fit that description. Normally, she would have peppered him with question upon question and would have used the trip to learn who this man was and find out what he was doing so far from home. Normally…
Would she ever feel normal again?
She had wanted to remove herself from an explosive situation, cause as little damage as possible, and in that split-second of indecision, had decided to just go back to the way things were before. But there was no before, and there was no after. She had stepped from a dream into a nightmare.
"What a fool I am," she muttered.
"We're all fools in love, Shakespeare says anyway," said the cabbie absently. He had given up on trying to engage Maria in any way whatsoever and was focused on the road ahead.
She blanched and found herself wishing for the thousandth time in an hour that she could turn back the clock and change things. But it rose up in front of her vision, a bright spot in the darkness, something clear and sure inside this musty, old cab: love.
The baroness had said he was in love with her… but Maria finally understood what the Baroness had tried to show her. It wasn't that the Captain had fallen for the governess. No, not that. It was that she, Maria, had gone and fallen in love with the sea captain. She, a postulant! She, of no position, with hardly a thing to her name! She had fallen in love with a man famed across Austria for his acts of heroism in maritime war; she had fallen in love with a man who had been personally recognized by the Emperor. He was everything in the Old Order and a bulwark carrying into the new.
He deserved so much better than anything she could ever give him, and she could never be the woman that he needed. She couldn't be his deceased wife, and she could most certainly not be the glamourous and cultured Baroness Elsa Schröder. And, she realized with shocking clarity, if she were ever to marry, she would want to have her own child—what man would want that when he already had seven? It was absurd, and if she had anything to be grateful for in all of this, it was that the Baroness had seen fit to approach her, and no matter the appropriateness of that decision, she was grateful.
But if this was better, why did she feel so miserable?
"Where ya from, Fräulein?"
Maria looked up at the cabbie, blinking several times as she realized the lights of Salzburg were flooding through the cab windows.
"Tyrol," she said. "But I went to school in Vienna."
"That explains your 'peculiar' speech," he jibed lightly, but when his passenger failed to react, he shrugged and asked gruffly, "Where should I bring ya?"
"The fountain," Maria said mechanically.
"You're a strange one, girl. Ya sure there ain't someone I can fetch for you?"
And there it was again. That gripping, welling loneliness. It constricted her chest and made it hard to breathe, let alone speak. Loneliness that was black and despairing. She had always enjoyed her solitude, but this was something else entirely. It was as if a chasm had opened up inside her and filled itself with everything terrible she had ever thought or done. And the worst of it? She had fallen in love with a man, a betrayal and perversion of her very calling.
"No," she whispered. "No one."
Aching to get away from this man, Maria pulled her guitar onto her lap and snapped the case open. Within, she felt around for the little compartment and pried it open, grabbing a few crumpled notes and thrusting them toward him as he drove into the Residenzplatz.
"Keep the change," she said brusquely, hastily shutting the case and getting a firm grip on her carpet bag. She lodged her guitar case under her arm, and bolted from the vehicle as soon as it began to slow. She didn't look back after slamming the door behind her, instead rearranging her belongings into each hand and walked with purpose toward the river.
"Hey!" came the cabbie's voice. "Hey, stop!"
Maria paused, heaved a sigh, and turned.
"Your hat, Fräulein."
Hardly making the effort to lift her feet, Maria swiveled and trudged back to take the ugly leather hat that the cabbie was holding out for her from his open window. "Dankeschön," she muttered, trying to smile at him and failing.
He saluted her briefly and nodded, pulling himself back through the window and shifting the idling engine back into gear. This time, Maria stood there and watched until his cab disappeared between the buildings in the square and snaked its way back through the streets of Salzburg, probably to cross over the Salzach and stake out a spot near the Hotel Sacher.
Shaking her head, Maria looked over her left shoulder and peered up at the fountain. It would be encased in its protective cover before very long to protect it from the coming winter. Fortifying herself with a heave of her bags, Maria trudged up the steps and sat down, knees knocking together as she settled her things beside her. Then, she let the sound of the water behind her fill her mind, and dropped her head into her hands.
"Dear Father, please help me."
Moments could have lasted hours. Suddenly, the bells were tolling the hour, their vibrations reaching deep inside her. There was something about experiencing this in the dead of night, with just the slightest chill in the air, that made Maria acutely aware of herself: the pounding of her racing heart, the water falling behind her, the lack of words.
Normally, she could pray like she was talking to her best friend. She could talk about anything and everything, earnestly, and without stopping for long intervals. How many times had she looked up from her prayers over folded hands only because her stomach was rumbling and the sun's position proved that it was almost mealtime, surprised by the time that had passed? How often had she lost track of time as she wandered the Untersberg because she was so absorbed in her conversations with the Lord? And now, here she was, sitting on the cold stone steps of the fountain in the Residenzplatz, more in need of a refuge than ever and finding none.
She could go back to Nonnberg, she mused. Like she had originally planned. She could say that she was no longer needed and it would not be a lie. Most certainly, the news of the engagement of the Captain von Trapp and Baroness Schröder would be announced by the end of the week, if what the maids and Frau Schmidt had to say had much weight—and by what Maria had seen, they were very nearly never wrong.
On the other hand, she could leave. Go somewhere else, do something else, be someone else.
But where?
So in love with her beloved Alps for as long as she could remember, Maria had never put much consideration into venturing beyond the world she knew. She could return to Vienna and find a teaching position, or maybe open a seamstress shop. Or, maybe… the world was so much bigger than Austria, after all. The jilted attempts at conversation with her cab driver had been plenty proof of that. It was somewhat embarrassing, the thought that she really did know nothing of the people that lived beyond the borders of her homeland and shared her mother tongue.
But if the rumours of the rumblings of war were to believed, certainly Germany would not be a wise choice. Switzerland, perhaps… or…
"Paris," she said aloud, to no one but herself. "I'll go to Paris."
"It is a fine choice, a lovely city," said a voice from below.
Frozen in place, Maria's flight or fight instinct was paralyzed. Hardly daring to believe it, she slowly raised her head. The figure stepped closer, and she shrank back, knocking her elbows against the worn stone of the step behind her.
"No," she breathed. "You're not supposed to be here. This is a nightmare."
The man stepped nearer still, pausing just at the foot of the steps.
"You see, Fräulein," he said, "I have been very lucky to have the opportunity to visit Paris on a number of occasions, and it has never disappointed. There are myriad opportunities there for someone so talented as yourself. You could be a seamstress, yes, of course. Naturally. But, you could sing, too. And even dance, as you showed me so well tonight." He gestured to her carelessly. "Really, it does not matter. You would do well."
"What are you doing here?" she rasped, her rough voice betraying the wild fear she felt growing with each passing moment.
That gave the Captain pause, and she could just make out from her vantage point the way he raised his chin higher and his eyes widened at her words. Was it surprise? Or anger?
"I think," the Captain said softly, "that I should be asking you that. But I am not, you see. I merely wish to help you." He reached out a hand. "Come down from there, it must be dreadfully uncomfortable."
"I'm fine where I am, thank you, sir," Maria said stiffly.
"Sir?" Georg repeated with a note of curiosity playing in his voice. "As I recall, you have called me many things, but that has not been one of them, not since the day we met and you deemed it appropriate to mock my militarism."
Now, Maria's fear was fading, and it was instead morphing to bewilderment. What in heaven's name could he be raving on about?
"I'm sorry, but have you gone mad?" she asked sharply.
He gave a derisive laugh, one that became a series of small chuckles. "One might say that, yes," he nodded. "You see, I noticed that my governess was missing, and I came after her. Who does that?"
"How did you even know where to look?"
"Well, aside from the fact that you have never been a particularly opaque person, and are someone whose absence can be felt keenly…" the Captain trailed. He spread his hands. "The cabbie who brought you here came back. He seemed to think you might do something mad, yourself. So I transcended the madness, and I asked him to bring me here as quickly as he could."
Warily, Maria surveyed the naval captain standing at the foot of the steps below her. He was still dressed in uniform, and she could see his Maria Theresa Cross glinting in the moonlight. "How long have I been gone?" she asked.
"It's just past midnight, now," the Captain said casually.
Maria leaned back. The children had gone to bed around 9 o'clock.
"I, uh, I also found this," he added, pulling the small envelope she had left for him from inside his jacket. "I read it, and naturally was very concerned. It did not seem to fall in line with the woman who was dancing with my children on the terrace just an hour prior to leaving this in the great hall."
He pulled her hastily-scribbled note out and shook it open, squinting down at it to read it by the light of the moon. "I missed the abbey. Please forgive me." He looked up. "I claim to be no master detective, but Fräulein, there is something you should know. You are a terrible liar, even on paper."
She sat there, wordless, and closed her eyes.
"Perhaps I overstep my bounds and make assumptions I have no right to make, but I seem to recall you saying a short while ago that you would go to Paris. Frankly, that does not sound like someone who misses the cloistered life. That, and the staircase to the abbey are but a few minutes' walk from here. You could be ensconced in your little room safe and protected from whatever has frightened you, and instead, you have been sitting there for hours, plotting schemes to leave here."
Silence fell around them, and as the minutes ticked by, the sea captain gazed up at his governess expectantly, waiting for a response. Finally, he folded her note and placed it back inside his jacket, straightening it with a snap and brushing away invisible lint.
"You're free to do as you will, but at least come back and give the children a proper goodbye. You can leave after breakfast."
Maria sat there, seeming not to hear him.
"Say something, please," he said.
She opened her eyes, if not for his words, then for the fact that his voice had lost its light, curious timbre, and instead seemed to have cracked under strain.
Standing, she brushed herself off and descended the steps, pausing several paces from where the Captain was standing. "I think," she said lowly, "you know that it would not be appropriate for me to return. Not in the least."
"Have I done something unforgivable?" he asked her, bewilderment etched on his face. "Please, tell me what it is, and I'll set it right!"
"Forgive me, Captain, but you cannot fix this. Only I can."
"The children, then?" he prompted.
"Oh, no, never!" she assured. "They couldn't cause such a mess if they tried."
"You won't miss them?"
"That isn't fair."
His nostrils flared and Maria was satisfied to see an angry spark in his eyes.
"I'll tell you what isn't fair, Maria. What is not fair is that my children love you, and depend on you, and you've just gone and left them, without a word. What isn't fair is that you left me with a lie. After everything, don't you think I at least deserve the truth? What isn't fair is that in the moment when I read your note and realized you must have gone away, everything was suddenly wrong again. What isn't fair is that I tried to tell myself to let you go, and even though I went to search for you, found nothing, and was prepared to abandon you to a memory, this cabbie shows up and flags me down and tells me that he took a woman matching your description from my property and that she seemed very distressed, and likely to do something unthinkable! Then, I had to follow, and that is what is not fair!"
Maria gazed across at him with the most peculiar expression on her face, wordless once again in the face of his tirade.
"What?" he asked viciously.
"You called me Maria," she said quietly. "You've never done that before."