Hi, so here is the second chapter of this story and I hope you enjoy it. I will keep this note rather short. As I said in the last chapter there might be some historical accuracies and if so I apologise. Same with spelling and grammar.
Disclaimer-Nothing here is mine just the plot.
Please Read and Review and let me know what you think.
A Sister's Love
Chapter 2-An Honest Mistake.
Liesl and Brigitta regroup after the events in the abbey and as Austria tightens it's borders they begin their escape.
Brigitta didn't know what happened. Not in it's entirety but she found that when she woke up she would repeat the events that would happen again and again before she could get out of bed.
They had been laughing and joking even with the invasion and then Rolfe had been there with a telegram, there had been her father standing there the flag of the Nazi's torn to shreds in his hands and then he had gone and they were being told to pack a bag. She'd taken her memories, as much as she could carry, her books and newspapers and maps and she'd left her dresses and her hairpins and her silk sheets still deliciously rumpled from the morning.
Then she'd been singing, under guard but she had been singing and then she had been running and then it had been the abbey to the churchyard to running once more and it never seemed to stop.
She'd had Liesl holding her hand and they were running and then as far as she could remember there had been Rolfe standing there. Herr Zeller behind and her father nowhere in sight. Rolfe had took one look at the steps where his new commander had been coming down and had dragged Liesl backwards into a closet. His gun had come down hard on her sisters head and then the door had been shut just as the man himself had come down the steps.
She'd heard Rolfe talk the man away, heard a shot taking place but then she had been preoccupied about the blood that seemed to be steadily dripping out of the cut that was on her sister's head. And Brigitta knew it was over. Then at the tender age of ten she knew it was over. Whomever opened the door to this changing room was going to kill them. She sat there amongst the nuns habit with her sister half unconscious in her lap and their suitcase scattered around them and she had been dabbing at the cut with her headscarf and trying not to let her hands shake to much.
Just as she was sure that she could breathe again the door opened and Brigitta had wanted to scream but the sound never left her. Looking back she was glad that she didn't because standing there was the insanely comforting face of one of the Sister's who Brigitta was sure was called Margarethe.
"Oh my child" she had said looking at them both and Brigitta had known that she was at least for the moment safe. She wanted to swallow down the tears that were steadily coming but she couldn't and she let out a hiccupping sob. She wanted her father and her mother or at the very least she wanted Liesl to wake up and take command of the situation in the way that only her older sister could.
"No tears" the nun said quietly. "They've left for the moment but they could be back. They have committed a great sin in the house of God and they do not care about the state of their souls. A young man has been murdered. Perhaps not a good man, but a young one who could have repented his foolish ways and been rewarded—" she cut herself off her hands shaking and Brigitta watching her realised what she was trying to say though she did not fully understand it. She was ten, the consequences of war were lost on her.
"Whose dead?" she asked quietly. The nun looked at her sharply.
"Nobody in your family. As far as we can they all got away. Of course weather or not they are over the boarder…they were chased you see…we tried to dismantle the cars. Well we did dismantle one but the other…" she made an abrupt sign of the cross and then waited. Brigitta waited too and then she heard it, the low calling of a bird, but surely it was too late in the night for a bird to be calling so low and so sweet?
"They are gone finally. Come child, we need to get some medical attention to your sisters cut. And we need to plan what we are going to do"
Brigitta stood up and though her legs were shaking she followed the chorus of nuns who'd had their peaceful night disturbed and who were doing their best to help despite this fact.
She turned around, she shouldn't have but she did and she saw one of the nuns over a face with a cloth covering the rest of the body and she knew who was dead. The bullet wound in the middle of his forehead was obvious and his eyes were closed, if not for the whole then there would have been nothing to dissuade her that he was sleeping.
It was Rolfe.
There was a long staggering moment where she stared at him and then she turned her head away. Herr Zeller she knew must have seen him dragging Liesl away, maybe he had never needed an excuse. Maybe it had been their father. Either way it didn't matter.
Rolfe was dead.
And that was the moment that Brigitta always woke up.
Since that day she had to repeat that story to herself before she could force herself out of the small bed that she and Liesl shared in the quietness of the abbey. It had been a week now and today was the day that plans were supposed to change.
Liesl had woken up after the second day and though her head hurt she'd been awake enough to understand all that had happened. Weather or not she grieved Rolf in any way she never showed it in public but Brigitta found that sometimes she was awakened in the night by her sister shaking her back to her never saying a word or making a sound. She never gave out if it was due to cold or shock or tears but Brigitta would hug her pressing her face into the shoulder blades of Liesl's back and try to offer whatever comfort she could give. She had never loved someone before the way Liesl had loved (or at least gushed about) Rolfe. She was not sure and she didn't want to pry but she wanted to offer whatever comfort she could give. Again it was something that Liesl did not discuss in the morning.
The nuns had been their guiding rock and each day reflected their values. It was clear that their family had gotten over the border and rather than worry about where they were Liesl was keen on getting out of Austria. Already the borders were closing and it was costing money on the black market to get out and they were joining the throngs of refugees, people that had woken up one morning and found out that they were suddenly unwelcome in their own country.
Each day they woke up at eight after morning prayers. While the nuns moved around the abbey they kept silent and safe within it's walls as the Mother Superior thought it best that they not be seen. The nuns had managed to escape retribution by the Nazi's on account of Herr Zeller's belief that he could not order his men to arrest or shoot nuns when there was no cause. After all (one novice told them over breakfast) there was still the believe that nothing had changed in Austria. Even then cabinet were spouting the lies.
Brigitta didn't care. She didn't want to know what lies were being spouted in the street and in the newspapers. She knew the truth.
Liesl woke soon after she did and they dressed in silence. They had their clothes and their personal belongings and they brushed their teeth and packed their suitcases again. Today was the day that they were going. One of the novices had secured a passage on a cattle truck heading out of Austria (alongside thousands of other refugees) that would take them into Switzerland. From there, there was a very good chance they could get a boat to America or if not to America to somewhere else that was free from the Nazi's rule. As long as they got to a free country Liesl would tell her at night, they could find a way to find their family and be reunited.
Brigitta wasn't so sure of this but she didn't dare say. Her sister seemed to be clinging onto this plan with everything she had and Brigitta did not dare even try to take it away from her.
They had money, they had passports and they had each other as Liesl would continually say. They could make it work a few more months.
Breakfast was with the other novices and usually consisted of porridge with a hunk of dark rye bread, butter and some tea. After more prayers Liesl would go into the Mother Superior's office to assist in any way she could with the escape plan and Brigitta would find herself being put to work by one of the nuns, sometimes it was cleaning the heavy books in the library or doing translations (which was her favourite part of the day) other times it was collecting wood and cleaning dishes or mending clothes. In the afternoon they would help out with an alter cloth the nuns were working on that looking at it would take a hundred nuns and years to complete. It was if they were making a statement with that cloth Brigitta thought, as if they were going to be here regardless of what happened outside these walls, regardless of how many men with jackboots and guns invaded this holy space and regardless of how many were going to be lost in the sea of blood that seemed almost inevitable.
Mother Superior never joined them. According to Sister Berthe who was strict but kind she spent most of her afternoon and evening in silent contemplation and prayer. Brigitta couldn't understand why but she was careful not to voice opinions anymore. It was if these too had become too dangerous to be spoken and it seemed almost insane for her to think that just a week ago it didn't matter and now it was a matter of life or death.
Dinner and lunch were much the same, it was soup with some meat and some bread and Brigitta thought of the three course meals waiting for her at home which was just a half an hours walk, that her bed was warm and waiting for her but then as soon as she thought of this and how easy it was to go home she would snap herself out of it.
For it was not her home anymore. Herr Zeller in one final act of defiance to the man who had shown him up for what he was had taken their father's house as his Headquarters and had moved in his men. It was his men who would rip out the books that once belonged to her mother and burn them in the street because they were now illegal or too radical or too difficult for a woman to read. Brigitta hated him for many thing but she burned with loathing for this.
Today was going to be different though, today was going to be the day that they escaped and she was utterly terrified of it. Though life within the walls of the convent was utterly boring it was safe and it was secure and these were people that knew and loved them. Brigitta was not sure weather or not she was ready to leave the only safe place that she had.
They dressed in silence. They ate breakfast in silence, there was a sense that neither one of them wanted to talk about what was going to come next.
"You know" Liesl said as they waited outside of the Mother Superior's office. "I will keep you safe Brigitta. I promise you that. I will keep you safe until we get to wherever mother and father are"
Brigitta nodded but she wondered if her sister too could hear reflected back at her the ring of an utterly empty promise.
She took Liesl's hand and smiled when her sister's gloved hand squeezed back.
The Mother Superior came out of the office, she crossed herself and both Liesl and Brigitta followed suite. She was followed by Sister Margarethe, Sister Sophia, Sister Berthe and Sister Bernice and the older women knelt on the floor and Brigitta and Liesl followed suit crossing themselves for the prayer their knees cold on the hard floor.
"Lord, we ask thee for your protection for your daughters Liesl and Brigitta. We ask that you keep them safe from harm and reunite them with their family. We ask that you keep them in your loving heart as they embark upon this journey and we ask that the terrible price of war does not fall upon this world for the second time. We ask this of you with open and devoted hearts"
For a minute they prayed together the old woman and the young woman and the girl and then her hands on her rosery the Mother Superior rose, everyone else on their knees and slowly she made the sign of the cross over their heads. Brigitta closed her eyes and prayed that the old woman was right and prayed even harder that they would see each other again.
They stayed on their knees in deep prayer for another minute and Liesl was tugging at her shoulders and Brigitta was standing and they were leaving the abbey and neither one of the Von Trapp sisters looked back.
There was no point. That part of their life was gone now.
It was time to look forwards towards the future.
Whatever that may be.
And there you go. I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and hopefully I will be able to bring you the next one sooner rather than later.
And yes, I killed Rolfe. My headcannon for this is that Herr Zeller found out he hesitated which allowed most of the family to escape but it was also because of Liesl, Rolfe was innocent in his own way and he did love her so to me it made sense that at the end he wouldn't be able to turn her into the Nazi's but rather incapacitate her and hide her. It was the death of innocence for her and for a lot of other people when the invasion happened-That sense of the old world was over and a new one was coming and that there was a sense that war was wonderful and brilliant and everyone wanted to be a solider which as we all know leaves a person quickly. And if truth be told I never did like him.
And if I don't get a chance to update before New Year I wish you all a very Merry and safe Christmas and a happy and safe start to the New Year.
Next Chapter-Liesl and Brigitta leave Austria for the last time and Liesl has to find a way out of the political minefield that has become Europe in 1938.