A/N: I've had this chapter in my pocket for a long time (two weeks!) and I'm posting it quickly before I decide to rearrange it once again. It's supposed to be thoughtful and poetic, but it will probably come off very longish and cheesy, so, as always, if you have any corrections, advice, critiques, blather, rambling, or suggestions please send them my way :o)
I made some minor changes to ch 9 (they don't affect the plot, though)—thanks, imnotacommitte. lol, jessica97, I'm glad you stuck with the fic :o) For those of you who've been asking, a scene from the movie (the Captain singing Edelweiss, obviously) is after this, and things will be a tad more romantic for that and the next few chapters. At least I think they're more romantic. :o).
Also, I meant to mention in ch 9 that the particular attention & insight re: Louisa (in that chapter and throughout) was inspired by imnotacommittee's 'Skipping Stones'. If you haven't read that fic I highly recommend you do so :o)
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Chapter 10
It was Louisa's turn that day. As always, she wanted the mountains. The day was beautiful for it; Fräulein Maria had worn her hideous convent contraption on account of it; Max and Elsa were resigned to it, and the children excited. It became rather a bigger production than certain others of the children's picnics had warranted. For one thing, Georg simply couldn't imagine Elsa sitting on the grass, or even on a blanket, and had had the house servants come along with several lawn chairs. For another, Max simply wouldn't countenance a picnic that provided food of any lower quality than he was accustomed to, and so there was wiener-schnitzel, noodles, all manners of chicken salads and quality cheeses—and of course wine, both red and white.
Maria, laughing, exclaimed at the proportions of the banquet; Kurt was delighted; and Louisa moodily protested that she preferred sandwiches. The children, however, ate with enthusiasm, as children are prone to do, and now they were going their separate ways—the boys again at ball; Louisa and Brigitta exploring the country-side; Liesl, Marta and Gretl wandering their way into the edelweiss; their Fräulein was showing them how to weave the flowers together into crowns and wreaths. Georg, a slight smile on his face, watched his children as he lounged beside Elsa and Max on the picnic blankets, where the three of them lingered over their wine.
"I used to do this all the time," Maria was saying.
"When you were our age?" Gretl was asking, her voice eager.
She was laughing. "No, before I was your governess. I did it every spring from the time I knew what edelweiss was."
"Edelweiss? This is edelweiss?" Marta was saying, poking her nose down into the sweet scent of the flower.
"You knew that, stupid," Kurt called over suddenly, while Friedrich had that ball. "We picked it before. And Father was always telling us, remember?"
"No, I—"
Friedrich threw the ball back at Kurt, hitting him squarely in the ear. "Ow--!"
"Pay attention!" Then a chagrined: "Sorry!" And so it went on, the children talking, their Fräulein laughing, Kurt lifting his chin and telling his little sisters what was what, Friedrich being heedless, Louisa being silent, but with a smile on her face. Georg idly shredded grass in his hands, lounging back, elbows on the ground and chest to sky, watching them.
"Georg?" Elsa's voice. "You seemed distracted, poor dear. Are Max and I really so boring?"
"Hm? No, Elsa—no." Georg, blinking, took up her hand in his own, studying its delicate whiteness, running the pad of his thumb up and down each finger.
Elsa laughed and removed her hand. "We were speaking of Vienna, darling, and all its . . . diversions. And—Georg?"
"Hm?"
"I asked you once before," Elsa began, her voice steady, but affecting humor, "and I'll ask you once again—what is it that brings you to Vienna?" Her hand was suddenly back on his. "I can see your heart is here—some of it, at least. These mountains, your home, your children—tell me, Georg, what is it that brings you to Vienna?"
"It's you, of course, darling," he answered Elsa lightly. "Of course, it's you. What did you think it was? Max?"
Elsa laughed—her questions had been serious, but theirs was an issue not to be settled by a mere question—but more, they both knew, through trial and error. It was why he'd brought her here, wasn't it? He knew she knew it too—she was just looking for his reassurances. She had come here with expectations, and though since the stage had arrived for the children, he and the Baroness had had more time alone together, she was wondering if he was going to ask what they had both suspected he was perhaps bringing her into his home—his real life—to ask. It was true: Georg had had his own expectations of himself regarding Elsa, some of which had not been met.
But just now, he didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to be plagued with questions. He had hoped to forget, out here, the news and this wonderful, ill-begotten morning, whose sharp, wistful wind reminded him of his dead wife. Spending the morning studying with his children had been pleasant, but there was a certain hollowness inside him that made him hunger for more—made him fear that he couldn't get enough of them, that he was asking too much of them, asking them to fill certain parts of himself they shouldn't have to fill.
Georg rested his forearm lazily over his eyes, feigning sleep or exhaustion, so he wouldn't be expected to participate in Max and Elsa's light banter. He turned his head, gazing out at the meadow, the edelweiss, the children, their little Fräulein, and the sky.
"Like this, Fräulein Maria?" Marta was saying, holding up her rather pitiful chain of flowers.
And Maria was laughing, saying, "It doesn't matter how, Marta. Edelweiss are always beautiful, any way you look at them." Looking at Fräulein Maria, her cascades of edelweiss all around her—almost mitigating the ugliness of that dress, but not quite—his children surrounding her, he was reminded of the old Austrian folk tunes soon to be forgotten in the encroaching darkness, of singing to Agathe and his children—a memory already forgotten in the bitter present of his own darkness. Bright, he was thinking, watching them. Clean and bright. It was the joy of his children, the way they were playing, in Marta's smile, in Gretl's face. It was even in their Fräulein's dancing eyes, high cheekbones and laughing lips, golden hair and slender figure: all of them so very clear, so light-hearted—pure, brilliant; 'clean and bright,' like the song.
Agathe had been so fond of music—so terribly fond. She'd liked singing, but she preferred his, and so she would hang on him, her sweet voice eager in his ear, until he'd sing to their children, until he'd sing to her—'those Austrian tunes you love so well, darling,' she would say. But she loved all kinds of music—from the folk tunes, to dance songs—'because,' she would tell him, 'I get to press up close against you in public, something you would never allow, otherwise.' Not only that, she loved jazz and tango, because they were risqué, classic orchestra, because it wasn't, Mozart ('I hear he came from a very fine town, darling,'), polka, because she thought it was funny, and every form of march, 'Because, Georg, they're all so military. Straight, strict, severe—they remind me of you, until I get you alone with me, dearest—and why then you're as gentle as a—why Georg, you're a monster and untamed brute when you're alone with me. A monster that will sing to me. Sing to me, Georg, because everything's better with music.'
Everything's better. Agathe had known it. Fräulein Maria knew it in her artless, honest way. Even when she wasn't singing, music filled her in the way that it filled these hills. It was vibrant, thrumming within her; her songs knew it and he knew it too. And yet, somehow, this constant reminder of song was not displeasing. The memories of Agathe—the really sharp ones, the ones in which he could hear her voice and feel her lips, knowing exactly what she would have said to one thing or another—these memories passed by in his mind and they were almost pleasant, though poignant—like memories of a vacation that was over and impossible to repeat. And so Georg, letting lethargy weigh his back down into the grass and sun beat down on his face, remembered Agathe, remembered song, and for once feeling only joy in the bittersweet memories.
"Not tired of it yet, Fräulein Maria," Louisa huffed, flouncing down next to her governess. Louisa had been running; her cheeks were red and her eyes bright.
"What?" Maria asked her, choosing not to mind the fact that Louisa had taken up some of her flowers and was shredding them in her hands.
"You said if I did this every day I'd get tired of it." Louisa paused and tossed the flower aside. "Well, we haven't done it everyday, but you see we're not bored yet, thank you," she said, waving out in the direction of her siblings. Then she muttered (none too quietly): "I prefer this to yodeling."
Fräulein Maria threw back her head and laughed. They had been practicing their play for a while now—excluding Georg, Elsa and Max, 'because,' Gretl had explained to them with a frown, 'it's a surprise.' "I know what you mean, Louisa," her Fräulein told her. "I know what you mean because I have the same problem. I'm not sure that it gets any better than this. The air is so clear we could hear a bird sing from miles away, if we really listened." She winked at Louisa. "I must say I enjoy the company, too," she said, with an arch smile.
Suddenly, she caught his eyes on her, and her laugh fell away—but the smile did not. It was the same, warm gentle smile that she had given him that morning, full of an innocence that made him—made him ache, but for what, he did not know. For youth, perhaps, for the past, for a future unmarred and untouched by the bleeding black in the center of a Nazi flag. Idly, he studied the governess. Small and white, he thought, and inwardly, he chuckled.
Agathe would have been deliciously appalled at the thought. 'You're very schmaltzy, you know that?' she used to tell him. 'You don't look it, but deep down, really deep (not just under your clothes—what, darling?—I'm serious!), underneath all that severe discipline and sardonic wit, you're really just another bad poet. You're my own Goethe—without the talent, technique, or just plain taste. But you're far more handsome, dear,' she used to hurriedly add, smirking.
Amused, despite Agathe—or perhaps because of her, he let the thoughts of Edelweiss blend with the vision of his children on this hill, this little Fräulein governess laughing with her bright eyes. How long had it been since he watched something beautiful? How long would it be before he could do it again? What were the odds of this—these green, unblemished hills; his children, content and happy; country girls outside, unafraid, talking laughing, smiling—what were the odds of this lasting?
"I can never figure out which you love more—your wife, your country, or your children,' Agathe would have said, at that point. And then he would give her his arch look, raising a stern brow, giving her a mocking, laconic: 'wouldn't you like to know?' And then he would step up to her, his voice suddenly rough with his desire, and speak into her lips: 'I love them all, beautiful, and that's why you love me.' And laughing, she would cock her head and go on with her musings: 'Or maybe it's just yourself that you love best—' and then at his annoyed expression she wouldn't speak any more, whether to placate him or tease him further, because her mouth would be lost on his.
Some of the children were singing, now. Their little Fräulein had been telling them the words and notes to a new song—but half of them were engaged in some demented kind of yodeling that they had been practicing for the past few weeks, and only a few were focused on listening. He had been right some while back when he had accused his children of singing atrociously. Marta was lisping and Gretl was out of tune, and when was Friedrich going to control that voice of his? 'I'm tired of singing,' Kurt complained, and Brigitta poked him while Louisa lay back and covered her face with her hands. And Georg found himself laughing.
He missed Agathe; he did. He missed the strength she would have given him, so that he could face what he knew was coming for this land he loved so much—what would be coming for his family, who would not be given the choice to weather the oncoming storm by going on as they had been. He missed waking up beside her and seeing her fresh, lovely face—he'd missed it this morning with a sudden sharpness that had taken his breath away. And yet, it was easy, sitting there on one of the dappled sun-lit mountains of Austria, to feel only warmth and pleasure in memory of things gone, even to put aside his foreboding at the new developments today of Hitler and the Third Reich.
Georg remembered what he had first thought on his arrival back home in Vienna: that he didn't want his children to change, that he feared them changing, feared them growing apart from him and each other. Now his frame of mind was different. His children were not a picture; they were beautiful and alive, wonderfully alive. He wanted them to learn, to become the adults he hoped they would be. In growing and changing, his children remained unchanged—they remained alive, and happy, as much as he had been stagnant in these past dark years. Bloom and grow, children, he thought to himself absently. Bloom and grow. . .
Even if he ever had to go so far as leaving this place—Heaven forbid—if his children could adapt, could apply themselves to wherever they ended up, could change, a sense of permanence would remain. Things around them could change and die; the Anschluss could come—but his children would thrive and that was the Austria he knew. This was the Austria he knew—his children happy on its verdant hills.
He was endlessly thankful for that realization Fräulein Maria had given him, when he had walked into his home to find his children singing once again. Seeing that, seeing Gretl and flowers in Elsa's hands after hearing that, had given him so much understanding. Gretl, edelweiss, Elsa—three beautiful symbols left in a world that was disappearing, bright points giving him hope and faith in the midst of his own darkness. And here it was again: his family, his hills, and a woman he thought he loved.
Some of the children were singing, now, and he was half-smiling, listening. Fräulein Maria's voice blended with theirs, clear and vibrant and strong in the midst of their more tremulous voices. Bless my homeland, he thought, suddenly, fervently, emphatically. Bless my homeland forever.
