Chapter 3
That night, she dreamed that she stood near the edge of a small, tidy town square, safely hidden in the evening shadows, watching a crowd of dancers frolic while a trio of musicians spun out a sweet tune. Her eyes were drawn time and again to one couple: a tall, slender man with a confident air, and a woman with gentle manner and a fat blond braid trailing down her back. They moved comfortably through the figures of a country dance, smiling and laughing together.
She came awake with a start, and with a new bit of information: Mama and Papa. I remember Mama and Papa, she thought, but the memory brought her only a sense of peaceful resignation, and she knew instinctively that her parents were no longer living. She tried to fall back asleep, anxious to see if more memories would be revealed to her, but it was almost dawn, and she quickly saw that more sleep was impossible.
And so the pattern began, to be repeated night after night: dreams that offered a tantalizing glimpse of a place, or a person, but never enough to tell her who she was or how she had come to be here. Then, without fail, an abrupt early morning awakening put a frustrating end to the remembering.
But if the nights were difficult, the days were sheer pleasure.
She followed the doctor's directions for the first few days, sitting quietly on the terrace and enjoying the sun, the air, and the view of the lake and the mountains beyond. The children hovered about her: Liesl styled her hair, Brigitta read to her, Kurt brought her tadpoles from the lake, Friedrich taught her a new card game, and Louisa provided an endless supply of treats from the kitchen. In turn, she read stories to the little girls and asked them to tell her all about themselves.
She'd expected it to be a bit awkward, getting to know them when she knew so little about herself, but she soon realized that the younger ones, especially, were naturally self-centered and lived in the moment; her predicament was not interesting to them. As for the older ones, perhaps they had been affected by losing their mother so young, but they seemed to open their hearts to her without reservation. Indeed, all seven of the children were starved for affection, and their devotion healed her and anchored her in her darkest moments. She thought back on her brief encounters with their ill-tempered father, puzzled that he could fail to appreciate them, especially since they were all he had left of their mother.
The days turned into one week and then two. Every night, she thanked God for the Captain's hospitality and asked Him to keep her family, wherever they were, safe. And then she climbed into bed with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation, knowing that bits and pieces of the past would come back to her while she slept.
The memories flickered through her dreams: a short, round man with a kind face, smelling of peppermints. A crowd of young people around a campfire, surrounded by mountains that soared straight into the sky. A tall, bespectacled boy. The weight of a crucifix on her chest and a dark chapel filled with the sounds of voices lifted in prayerful chant. Children seated in a classroom, their heads bent over their work. Green meadows, animals in a barn, bright copper kettles whistling merrily, geese flying in the moonlight, mouthwatering tortes and strudels. And throughout every dream, like a golden thread, was woven music, voices chanting, guitars strumming, violins singing, the cry of a trumpet, the beat of a drum.
The music always stopped abruptly the moment she awakened, however. It was a trial, waking every morning before dawn, unable to get back to sleep, left to try and make a past for herself out of the fragments she'd been given.
The days' joys made the nights bearable, though. Had she grown up in a large loving family like this, or was she relishing it because she'd never had the experience? She loved splashing in the lake, reading bedtime stories, hearing Liesl's woes about the telegram boy, conducting hotly contested spelling bees, romping throughout the villa on rainy days, racing the boys through the garden. Her soul was fed by the summertime vista of lake, sky and mountains, and her body was fed by Cook's enormous and generous meals, always topped off by an extravagant dessert. She might have forgotten her name, or where she was from, but she knew one thing about herself: she had a ferocious sweet tooth.
The children weren't perfect, of course. They bickered constantly, over who had won a swimming race, who got the biggest piece of strudel, whose turn it was at cards. They even argued over her name, even though she'd asked them to simply call her "Fraulein." Each of the seven had a different name for her, all names beginning with "M."
One afternoon, she broke up an argument between Brigitta and Marta. "Why are you torturing your sister so, Brigitta? Where is your book?"
"I've read everything in the nursery at least five times," the girl complained.
"Your father must have a thousand books in that library of his, for heaven's sake. Can't you find something there?"
"Father doesn't let us use his library."
"Well," she said slowly, remembering Doctor Weiss' advice to her. Surely that counted as an invitation. "What if I were to find something for you in there?" And so Brigitta was able to lose herself in the new riches from her father's library.
"Father doesn't …." It was almost a daily refrain. "Father doesn't want us to play. Father doesn't let us get our clothes dirty. Father doesn't let us stay up late. Father doesn't want us in the kitchen."
And worst of all, "Father doesn't want us to talk about our mother."
She'd learned about this last one when she'd come upon them one night after dinner, whispering and giggling until they caught sight of her and fell silent. After three weeks together, she was a little hurt that they would keep secrets from her, but she also felt comfortable challenging them.
"Go on. What were you all talking about just now?"
"We were talking about Mama," Friedrich said defiantly, "even though we're not supposed to."
"Why not?"
"Father told us after she - afterward. That the best thing to do would be to try and forget about her. But we couldn't stop ourselves. Liesl and I would meet in the bathroom after lights out and tell stories about her. We'd have to whisper, remember?" he asked his sister.
Liesl picked up the heart-rending story. "When Father began to spend so much time away from home, we got careless. Marta overheard us one night, and then we had to talk to her. It's the only way she'll ever know anything about Mama, anything at all," the girl said with great feeling.
"Well. You're perfectly free to talk about your mother around me. Tell me, what was she like?"
It was as though a floodgate had opened, and in the days to come, the late Baroness Von Trapp became part of the conversation until she was as familiar as her children. Her presence seeped from the safety of the nursery down the stairs into the dining room, out on the terrace and on the lawns beyond.
As the days went by, she puzzled over the Captain's behavior after his wife died, and his aloof, dismissive attitude toward his children. What, she wondered, could win him back? She thought back on the brief conversation they'd had just before he left for Vienna. That, and Brigitta's love of reading, gave her an idea.
"Come on, everyone." she said the next morning. "We're going to have school today, and every day from now on. Two hours, every morning."
The news was met with a chorus of groans. "But it's summer!" "Our other governesses never made us do schoolwork in the summer!" And, from Louisa: "You're not even a teacher!"
"Actually, darling, I am a teacher," she replied, without thinking, and then all at once, she knew it was true. "I am a teacher," she repeated, clinging to that new bit of information about herself like prayer.
After that, something inside her flickered and then roared back to life. Every night, she searched the Captain's library for books to use in their lessons, recognizing and greeting the volumes like old friends from her lost past; every morning, she enticed her charges into the nursery with something new and interesting to learn.
She continued to mull over the scraps of her history gleaned from her dreams, and clung to her new identity as a teacher. Then, one rainy afternoon, the veil that hid her past lifted once again.
It happened during an energetic game of hide-and-seek, when she flung herself into a dusty closet on the third floor and promptly stumbled – literally – over a discarded guitar case. Sneezing violently from all the dust, she felt her fingers begin to tingle and, before she knew what she was doing, she had opened the case and was lifting the strap over her head.
And just like that, she found she could play the guitar. She couldn't wait to show it to the children. "Does anyone play? Or sing?"
The children exchanged uneasy glances. "N-no," Liesl explained. "Father used to. Mama had a lovely voice, and they would sing after dinner sometimes, but …" the girl trailed off into silence.
"Well, then, I'll teach you."
"Father doesn't want us to sing," Kurt said patiently, as though explaining something to a small and not very bright child.
No music, she thought. Of course. Nothing that reminds him of her. But the music was making her fingertips itch, and the melody hummed in her ears, drowning out the Captain's wishes.
"Your father said nothing to me about music," she said firmly. "Now. Let's start at the very beginning."
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He'd suffered through Elsa's party, soaking himself in champagne, stumbling through waltzes by Strausses he didn't even know. By Tuesday, the knot of anger and guilt had dissolved, leaving regret behind.
Today, he knew very well, was Marta's birthday. Even in Vienna, he couldn't completely escape the memories of her difficult birth. The thought of the young Fraulein he'd left in charge of his children; lucky girl, to have no such memories to haunt her.
He'd considered sending Marta a gift, but he had no idea what to buy, and he knew, without even asking, that Elsa would be of no help. And why set expectations he might not be able to meet for the next birthday? Brigitta's was next month, he thought, surprised that it came so quickly to him. No, Cook's customary cake would be adequate for the occasion.
He did try to call home, and was secretly relieved when Frau Schmidt told him that the children were out on the lake with their Fraulein. "Will you call back later?" she asked.
"I'll try," Georg said, knowing he wouldn't. After he rang off, though, his thoughts returned to his children, out on the lake – could the younger ones even swim? He certainly hadn't taught them. And they were under the care of a young woman who didn't know her own name. A little shiver of worry ran up his spine, but he pushed it away and went in search of a brandy from Elsa's excellent selection.
After that, the sweltering summer days ran into each other, forming an exhausting routine of parties, theatre, shopping and music that made his head ache and his temper flare.
"Poor Georg," Elsa commented late one evening, while they lingered over a nightcap on a hidden terrace in her garden. "You look like you need a break from Vienna. We both do." The von Etten's reception had been exceptionally brutal – crowded and noisy, with too little air, too many bores and not enough food.
The nighttime breeze was so refreshing, the air fragrant with blossoms, and she had looked so lovely in lavender satin, that he felt his spirits starting to lift. "All right. What did you have in mind?" he asked amiably.
"I thought we might go to Paris for a few days. Just the two of us."
"Paris? Hold on, Elsa. You can't visit Salzburg because of your sister's confinement, but somehow you can get away to Paris?"
"Just for a few days, Georg. Her doctor says-"
"It doesn't matter. I'm not interested in Paris. In fact, I despise Paris."
"Come now, darling, you're being ridiculous." she coaxed him. "Everyone loves Paris. How can a man who loves music and art the way you do, hold Paris in such contempt? All the more reason to go, to remind yourself how just how magical it can be. When were you last there?"
"Nearly twenty years ago," he said shortly. "And that was enough for me. No, Elsa, if we're going anywhere, it is Salzburg. And that's all there is to it."
"Very well." The nighttime shadows had deepened, until he couldn't see her face anymore, but he could hear the frown in her voice. They sat silently, each lost in their own thoughts, until she spoke again, her low voice floating out into the dark, fragrant evening air.
"You know, Georg, it's curious. For someone who is so anxious for me to visit Salzburg and meet his children, you don't seem to spend much time there yourself. With them. It makes me wonder exactly why you come to Vienna so often. Pretending to be so madly active. Could it possibly be that you are running away from-"
He was on his feet instantly, interrupting before she could finish the thought. "I come to Vienna for you, Elsa. Not your gay parties, or your glittering circle of friends, or your couture." Before she could reply, he pulled her roughly onto her feet and into his arms.
Sometime later, he was on his way back to his hotel in a taxi. A quarter-hour of kissing in the garden had left Elsa cheerful and uncharacteristically biddable, while Georg felt only relieved to have escaped dangerous territory. He didn't know quite what he had proved to Elsa, but whatever it was, he'd failed to convince himself.
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Georg was almost relieved when Elsa rang his hotel early one morning to tell him that her sister had given birth to a fine young son, and that she was on her way to her family's estate, where she'd be tied up for at least a week or two.
With time on his hands, it suddenly occurred to him that he'd been in Vienna for six weeks. Six weeks, far longer than he'd intended – or hoped. And during all that time, there had been not one call from home. Surely he'd have been alerted to any problems. Yet there almost certainly were problems, with that girl left in charge.
He tapped his foot nervously, waiting for his call to be answered.
"Frau Schmidt?"
"Captain von Trapp! Are you still in Vienna?"
"Of course I'm in Vienna!" What did she think, that he'd simply take off and sail around the world, leaving his family behind? Not that he hadn't dreamed of doing so, from time to time.
"Is everything in order? How are the children getting along with their Fraulein?"
"Everything is fine!" the housekeeper answered brightly, without a moment of hesitation.
"What," he scrambled for a handhold in this surprising conversation, "what, exactly have they been doing?"
A long, somewhat troubling silence.
"Oh, they keep busy, sir. And out of trouble."
He didn't know what disturbed him more, that long silence or the cheerful answer that preceded it. Perhaps he ought to conduct a first-hand inspection. It was ridiculous, anyway, to be sitting in a hotel in Vienna, a city he had come to detest, with time on his hands, simply because he was avoiding his family. Perhaps it was time to face his fears.
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It was their best rehearsal yet, she thought. Their sound was so full, so gorgeous that they no longer needed the accompaniment of the guitar. She couldn't wait to see the Captain's face when he heard them!
The hills are alive with the sound of music
Kurt's soprano soared above, high and pure on the descant. If he sounded this way here in the nursery, imagine how he'd sound in the foyer, or the ballroom, with their superb acoustics!
With songs they have sung for a thousand years
The hills fill my heart with the sound of music
My heart wants to sing every song it hears
The music swirled around them, sweet and rich and full of-
BANG!
The nursery doors flew open, and there, standing in the doorway glaring, was Captain von Trapp.
"Captain!" she exclaimed. "You're home!"
The children read him more quickly than she could. The glorious sound withered away as they scrambled into formation before she'd even decoded the expression on his face.
"What is the meaning of this?" he demanded.
"I – I taught them something to sing for you. And your Baroness, in case she -"
He swung around to face the children. "To your rooms. Immediately!" he barked, and she watched him nearly vibrate with suppressed anger until they had scurried from the nursery. Then he turned on her.
"You brought music back into the house?"
"Yes, I mean, I thought…" Her plan had backfired, miserably. She'd planned for them to surprise him, had even pictured the way he might thank her in his own stiff, formal way.
"I gave you sanctuary and this is how you thank me?"
"But Captain. Sir. Just what is so terrible about music?"
"That is of no importance. You defied my orders, and you encouraged my children to do the same."
Orders? He'd rushed from the house without leaving her even a word of instruction! "But sir, you never exactly said-"
His eyes blazed in his furious face and he was very nearly shouting at her.
"Did you or did you not defy my orders, Fraulein?"
She took a deep breath. "All right, have it your way, Captain. Yes. Yes I did! And do you know what else I did? I taught Friedrich a full term of Latin in just four weeks. Gretl is reading. Louisa can recite a dozen poems from memory, Liesl wrote a short story in French, and don't get me started on Brigitta. And do you know why they did it? They did it for you. For you. Their father, they-"
"That is enough!"
"They did it because they want more than anything to make you proud. They want so much to be close to you. Just look at those silly uniforms they insist on wearing, just to impress you! You think they won't amount to anything, but the truth is, if you would only let them-"
"I said that is enough!" he roared.
The girl stood before him, chin raised, blue eyes flashing with emotion. There was a confident air about her that she hadn't had when he'd left. All the more striking in contrast to the demure dress she wore, snow-white, ruffled, and several inches too short.
"Now," he said, drawing a deep breath. "You will…" he was brought up short by the realization that he couldn't very well dismiss her, the way he had the others. She had nowhere else to go.
"You will await further orders from me before I return to Vienna. For now, you are dismissed," he finished.
She turned to leave, but then turned back and began to lecture him, stabbing at the air with a raised finger.
"How long, Captain? How long are you going to keep running away from them? Because I'll tell you this. They are never going to stop pursuing you, no matter how hard or how far you run."
He couldn't believe his ears. "Are you calling me a coward? Me? Have you forgotten who, exactly, you are talking to? There is not a man or a woman in Austria who would agree with you."
"As you told me, Captain, that was a very, very long time ago," she countered hotly. "Now if you'll excuse me," and she stalked from the room. As though he hadn't been the one to dismiss her!
He stood in the middle of the deserted nursery, rattled by the intensity of his anger, and fighting to regain his composure. When he left the room at last, he came across her at the bottom of the great stairway, looking lost in the vast space of the foyer, and staring intently at the floor. When she looked up at the sound of his footsteps, her eyes were suspiciously shiny, and he thought he saw her lower lip tremble.
"Fraulein. There is no need for tears," he said stiffly.
"I am not crying," she said fiercely, knuckling away the evidence to the contrary. "I haven't cried once during this whole miserable experience, not once, since the night I arrived here, and," her voice broke as she choked out the last few spiteful words, "I'm not about to start now. Because, Captain, I am not the sort of girl who cries!"
She ran up the stairs then, and disappeared from sight.
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They avoided each other for the next day or two, in an unspoken, grudging truce. Until, shortly after breakfast one day, he found her in his library, rifling the shelves as though she owned them.
"Can I help you, Fraulein?" he said, intending to suggest that she was trespassing.
"No, thank you, Captain," she said politely, not seeming the least abashed at being discovered in his private space. "I've got exactly what I need right here."
"I doubt it. Those books are in English, if you haven't noticed."
"I know that," she said, with an exasperated huff. "Brigitta asked me to find them. Her sisters are helping her learn English. I gather their mother was-"
In a few long strides, he was by her side. "Let me see that," he demanded, and as she handed over the brightly-colored volume she'd chosen, he added, "why did you decide to begin teaching them? And don't try to tell me it was their idea."
"No. I simply felt they ought not to dream their summer holidays away," she said. "So, I gave each of them the choice of one activity, and this was Brigitta's. Now, Captain, may I?" She reached for the book, but he held it away from her.
"You may not. These books are from my personal collection." He crossed his arms defiantly.
She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Of all the …" she began, but then pressed her lips together. She knew better than to shout at the man, who, after all, was the only thing standing between her and utter ruin. Instead, she turned on her heel and forced herself to walk at a dignified pace, rather than scurry, from the room.
It was beginning to become a matter of routine for him in his interactions with her: she seemed uniquely able to enrage him, but after ten minutes, he'd cooled down, and his curiosity overcame his bad temper. Georg returned to the shelf of English books, running a finger across their spines until he found what he was looking for. Tucking it under his arm, he left the study.
On his way to the nursery, however, he noticed something peculiar – the ballroom doors, left open a crack. The ballroom was not to be disturbed, he'd made that clear to Frau Schmidt. He peered through the opening, thinking to surprise the intruder, but he couldn't make sense of what he saw. Not without a better look. So he pulled himself up to his full, intimidating height, and threw the doors open.
BANG!
"Captain von Trapp!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"A better question would be what are you doing?" he muttered, perplexed. A large area of the ballroom floor was covered in tablecloths, quilts and bed linens, all in shades of blue, some laid out smoothly and others rumpled. Strewn across them were several dozen toy boats and ships of different sizes and shapes. He thought he recognized a model he'd built with Friedrich long ago, but he had more trouble identifying the butter dish and the gravy boat. A clump of toy soldiers perched on a low stool nearby.
"Trafalgar," she said, as though it should have been obvious.
"I beg your pardon?"
"It's the battle of Trafalgar. We've been reenacting famous battles for our study of history. Great naval battles," she said pointedly. "Over there are the French, the Spanish are here, and the British of course…and that stool is Spain. We don't have enough boats, but Frau Schmidt was kind enough to send reinforcements from the china closet. Over there-" she pointed to an area where a tablecloth had been rumpled into irregular folds – "those are rough seas."
She thought she saw his lips twitch, but to her relief, he didn't yell, or scold, or even laugh. Instead, he simply studied the tableau for a long minute or two, tugging at his ear, before pointing to an area just next to her feet and announcing, "You've got this part wrong."
"Sir?"
One at a time, he toed a row of boats, and an old teacup, a meter to the right. "The British came from this direction. If they'd carried out your plan, Brigitta would have found herself learning French this summer, rather than English."
She broke into a smile that, he was quite certain, could have won over any adversary at sea or on land. "I hope you don't mind our using this space, Captain, but there's nothing this big anywhere else in the house, and with the weather having been so rainy, well…"
"I must say, I really am very much impressed," he said solemnly. "Do you mean to tell me they did this all by themselves?"
"Oh, yes, Captain, Friedrich and Kurt did all the work! I was only here to advise. They picked military history for their summer project. As you can see," she smiled. "Liesl chose to write stories, Louisa to learn poetry, and Brigitta you already know about."
"And the little ones?"
"Oh," she laughed easily. "They just want to be loved. I think they'd study chemistry, or engineering, or something like that, if I asked them to. But we are working on reading, mostly. They are all such a credit to you, sir."
A wave of unrecognizable emotion – pride, regret, and something else he couldn't quite name – washed over him.
"Look, Fraulein. I – I owe you an apology. I behaved badly the other day, about the singing. I left you in command, and I should not have questioned your judgement. The music is a particularly difficult area, you see. I'd forgotten…"
"Oh," she interrupted, waving his words away, "there is nothing to apologize for, Captain." But he could tell from the rising color in her face that she was pleased. He was struck, again, by how much more confident, even bold, she'd become in the weeks he'd been away. She'd put on some badly-needed weight, too; where she'd been all bony angles, a few curves had emerged that put to rest any idea that she was anything less than a full grown woman.
"Yes. Well." He shook himself back to the business at hand. "I brought you something. An English book of fairy tales for Brigitta."
She eyed the volume curiously. "But I thought you didn't want her to have anything from your collection."
"The book you chose is not – ehrm – it is not suitable for Brigitta. A romantic novel. My wife was very fond of that sort of thing," he finished in a rush, and she had the distinct impression that he was embarrassed by the confession.
"Oh, goodness. How fortunate you were here to advise me, then," was all she said, but her cheeks grew even pinker. She rifled through the pages of the book of fairy tales. "This looks perfect, Captain. What lovely illustrations!"
"Well, then." he said. They stood there a moment longer, but there really wasn't any other business he could think of to conduct with her. He hadn't had a conversation this long about his children in years. If ever. "I hope she enjoys it," and he turned to go.
"Captain," she stopped him on his way out the door. "Do you think – that is – would you be willing to let the boys show you this project themselves? Or give them some ideas for the next one? It would mean so much to them," she added shyly.
He thought, instantly, that they ought to go much farther back in time, the Battle of Salamis, for example. The Persians and Greeks, the course of history changed.
But no. "I'm sorry," he said, though he felt it again, a twinge of real regret. "I'm planning to return to Vienna tomorrow."
"So soon? I know Liesl was hoping…"
"What is it, Fraulein?"
"She is restless, cooped up here at home. They all are, especially the older ones. I mean, it's a lovely home, the grounds and so on. But they long to go up to the mountains for a picnic. I gather it's something you used to – well, anyway. In my circumstances, I don't really feel confident leaving the grounds, and she was hoping that while you were home, you might take them up there."
He thought of Vienna, hot, crowded, glittering, boring. Elsa would be tied up with her sister for another week anyway.
"I suppose I could put my return off by a day or two," he said slowly, his brow furrowing. "There is one request I would make of you in return, though."
She clapped her hands in glee. "Oh, yes, Captain! Anything!"
"No more music until I've returned to Vienna. I don't mind it for the children, but…"
He stopped abruptly and, without another word, turned, and left the ballroom.
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