Disclaimers, acknowledgements, notes, warnings, etc: Please see Chapter 01.

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The Sound of Music Chronicles

Part I

The Twelfth Governess

Chapter 08

Maria

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"She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee
Her dress has got a tear
She waltzes on her way to Mass
And whistles on the stair
And underneath her wimple
She has curlers in her hair
I've even heard her singing in the Abbey

She's always late for chapel
But her penitence is real
She's always late for everything
Except for every meal
I hate to have to say it
But I very firmly feel
Maria's not an asset to the Abbey

I'd like to say a word in her behalf
Maria makes me laugh

How do you solve a problem like Maria?"

Rodgers and Hammerstein – How do you solve a problem like Maria?
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"It is going to be another beautiful day," the girl exclaimed loudly, half of her body leaning dangerously outside the window of the room shared by half a dozen postulants at Nonnberg Abbey. The previous day had been just as beautiful. So much that she hadn't been able to resist the call of the mountains when dawn broke. It was quite an adventure that had cost her, of course – but even the hundreds of Hail Mary´s and Heavenly Father´s that the Mistress of Postulants asked her to pray as a penance hadn't been enough to convince her not to flee to the mountains again.

"Maria?"

She turned around to see who had called her name.

"Yes?"

"You are not supposed to whistle," one of her roommates said, in a whispered, warning tone.

"Oh right. Thank you for the reminder, Christina." Then she added, frowning. "I will never understand what harm there could be in whistling." Maria mumbled.

"Girls mustn´t whistle at all," another postulant chimed in. "And they do not mumble and mutter either. It is not… ladylike. And don´t frown and shrug like that – it is not ladylike either."

Maria rolled her eyes and shrugged, moving away from the window. Sometimes she found those girls so silly, and it was not because she was a few years older than them. She was going to be a nun. She never was, never would be or never wished to be a lady. That was something Theresa would never quite understand, coming from a wealthy Viennese family. She would never be like the refined women she sometimes saw attending Mass at the Nonnberg chapel, accompanied by their husbands and children. Such things belonged to another world that simply was not hers.

As if to verbalize her thinking, Maria stopped whistling, but defiantly began to sing at the top of her lungs, opening her arms wide and pirouetting around the room.

"Make a joyful noise unto the Lord,

All ye, all ye lands.

Serve the Lord, the Lord with gladness,

Come before His presence with singing…" (1)

"Ssssshhh, Maria!" Christina admonished her. "You will get us all in trouble again!"

"Oh rubbish," Maria sneered. "When did I get you in trouble before, Christina?"

"Yesterday. And the day before yesterday. And, if I am not mistaken, the day before that one as well." The young brunette informed Maria.

Maria moaned something intelligible, and resumed her singing.

"Speaking of yesterday," Christina began, "Did you two see the man who came to see the Reverend Mother? The novices were whispering about him, even some of the nuns. Oh, I could not help but being curious."

"Yes, I saw him when I was coming back from the Market. Who was he?" asked Theresa. "He looked awfully familiar to me… I wonder if he is one of my father´s friends from Vienna."

Maria rolled her eyes again, but this time she could not help but feel a little sorry for her friend. Theresa was so terribly homesick most of the time that any man she spotted on the street that had a vague gentlemanly air about him appeared familiar to her.

"I don´t know. Maybe Sister Margaretta can tell us if we ask nicely…," said Christina in a lower voice.

"There is no need to whisper, Christina," Maria interrupted her singing, now interested in the subject of her friend´s conversation. "There is nothing wrong with being curious."

"No, but being too curious is wrong," her friend admonished her.

Maria patted her shoulder.

"You are going to make a fine Mistress of Postulants one day, Christina." The girl smiled broadly – perhaps that was her secret dream after all. "I can´t understand why you are so curious this time. The visitor was just a man, like any other," she added. "Perhaps this man wanted to use the chapel to his wedding. You know the Reverend Mother rarely allows that, she has to be convinced. This man…"

"A gentleman," Theresa corrected.

"It´s the same thing," Maria mumbled, impatiently. She would never quite understand the logic of the aristocracy, that simply by being born in a certain family made you better than anyone else, but she respected Theresa´s views.

"No, it is not!"

Maria let out another very unladylike groan, on purpose this time.

"The gentleman who came to see the Reverend Mother yesterday morning was very distinguished, there was an air of authority on him. That is why we can´t help but make conjecture," Christina said, stressing the word gentleman.

"Did you see him too, Maria?"

"Why do you ask me?"

"Because you know everything, you go everywhere…"

"No, I…" Maria shook her head, but then though for a moment. Her large eyes widened, she cradled her head with both of her hands. "Oh - oh wait!"

"Maria?"

"Well… erhm… maybe I saw him."

"Maybe?"

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps?"

"Possibly."

"Maria!"

"Fine, but never blame me for being curious again; you two are just as bad." Maria took a deep breath. "Yes. I – ehm – uh…" She rolled her eyes, irritably, but apparent the simple gesture was enough for her to regain her composure and know what to say. It was not her fault that she was accident prone after all.

"Maybe I was nearly run over by his automobile. Then I may have knocked him down on my way to school," was her nonchalant reply.

"You didn't!" exclaimed Theresa, absolutely scandalized, while Christina giggled.

"I can´t be sure about the automobile, it happened too fast. But later, I saw the car parked outside. I vaguely remember a tall man –" she glared at Theresa,"- a gentleman, smelling like very expensive cologne just before I trampled him and Sister Berthe... At least I think that is how very expensive cologne should smell like, because it did not make me sneeze at all. You know I can´t stop sneezing when…"

"Maria!" the girls exclaimed together.

"Ooohhhh," she muttered impatiently. "I am not even sure if it was the man… gentleman you are talking about. I am just telling you the little I saw of him. To me, he was hardly memorable, and he drives like a madman. A danger to the streets of Salzburg, if you ask me," she jabbered. "I can´t understand why you are so excited about him."

"That could only be him. It is not every day that the Reverend Mother receives anyone from the outside world, let alone such a distinguished gentleman," replied Theresa.

"So it was him you saw, Maria!" said Christina.

"I saw the back of his dark, distinguished, superior, authoritarian, gentlemanly head." Maria tried to remember more about the men next to Sister Berthe, but found nothing in her memory.

"Distinctive, isn´t he?"

"Dashing," added Christina, who was the only one who had taken a closer look.

"A daredevil," Maria exclaimed irritably.

Frowning, she watched the two other postulants more closely. She loved them dearly, but they were awfully silly at times. It was odd that the same girls who had just chastised her because she was whistling and singing, now had cheeks flushed with excitement because they were talking about some mysterious tall and dark gentleman who had supposedly visited the convent. Outrageous as everybody else said she was, Maria did not remember ever behaving so peculiarly because of a member of the male sex, gentleman or not.

Well, maybe not so odd in Theresa´s case – the poor girl confided to the other postulants that becoming a nun had not been her choice, but rather, she had been driven to it to uphold an old family tradition. Not long ago, she admitted to Maria that she hoped to convince her parents to allow her to return to Vienna before she took her final vows. Maria promptly advised her to talk to the Reverend Mother about it, for she was sure she would not allow any girl to take the final vows if the decision was not made of her own free will. However Theresa feared her family's reaction more than anything else, and was still struggling with the idea of speaking her mind.

Christina, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. Sometimes, Maria secretly envied her because she had never seen anyone so devoted, so made to become a nun and dedicate her life to God as Christina. And in order to do that, the girl lived according to all of Nonnberg´s rules, no exception, even those Maria found impossible to obey, such as the singing restrictions and the periods of absolute silence and contemplation.

"Maria, stop throwing those funny looks at us. You of all people should not be annoyed. Just because we are going to be nuns doesn´t mean that we should lose our sense of aesthetics," said Theresa.

"Our sense of what?" Maria´s frown deepened.

"Aesthetics, Maria. It means…"

"Oh, I know very well what it means," she interrupted. "I just wasn´t sure I even had it in me!"

"Of course you do," replied Christina.

"We all do," added Theresa, impishly. "Remember when Sister Berthe caught you staring at the picture of Michelangelo´s David last year?"

"Yes," Maria said forlornly. "She made me rip the page off, but I still kept it. It was such a shame to spoil such a beautiful book, and I was going to glue it in again. Well, she saw me doing that, and I had to crumble the piece of paper and swallow it in order not to be caught…" she gulped. "I never understood why she didn't like the picture. It´s a masterpiece, a work of art. And depicting a biblical figure, not a pagan God. Didn't Michelangelo himself say 'I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free'?"

"Never mind what Michelangelo said. His David is… he is… well, you know… unclothed!" Christina suggested, saying the last word in a hushed whisper.

Maria gave her an impatient look.

"Oh that. So?" She shrugged. "There are naked statues everywhere you go in this city and no one ever said we should cover our eyes when we see them."

Having said that, Maria bit her tongue. It was partly true, only, because it was something that needed not to be said. It was all part of a list of things that simply were not talked about, not in a convent. In the rare occasions when such matters were discussed, it was only to remind them that they should not be discussed at all. Although the Reverend Mother was a surprisingly open-minded woman, Sister Berthe was not the only nun who did not encourage the postulants to look away discreetly when viewing certain works of art. The same applied to their own bodies. Bathing, for instance, was something that had to be done as quickly and efficiently as possible, and there was usually a little trouble if a postulant took longer than necessary.

"Looking and admiring is one thing. Openly staring is quite another," Christina remarked.

"Oooww! No man on earth was ever hurt from being stared at because he is beautiful, least of all a marble statue. What is the harm in it? Besides, how could one not stare at a Michelangelo statue? It´s absurd!" Both girls scowled at her, then started whispering among themselves about the absolute impropriety of Maria´s ideas. Never one to be ignored Maria asked, "Why, do you mean to tell me that the mysterious gentleman looks like a sculpted Greek God?" She laughed.

Both girls stopped whispering and gasped.

"I see," Maria said, trying to sound like she understood the reason for their silence, although she had no clue at all.

This so-called gentleman was much too intriguing. If he was as dashing as they said he was, when she turned around to kiss the floor, she should have taken a good look at him, instead of staring at Sister Berthe´s ominous frown. Why on earth hadn´t she done that? She had been in such a hurry, much too late for her class, and, to make matters worse, she had just nearly knocked the poor gentleman down, along with Sister Berthe of all people. All she could think of was kissing the floor, because she knew that the incident would lead to a long and boring lecture, the lecture to an argument which she would certainly loose. Since the nun made her kiss the floor whenever she lost an argument, she decided to save time and maybe even spare herself of the usual sermon.

Theresa´s voice interrupted her brief reverie.

"No, Maria, I don´t think he does. The man was much too real, and much too old for that."

"Hmmmm. I´ll have to think about that one… Oh, this whole pointless argument is getting too confusing." With a look of pure mischief, she decided to tease her two friends a bit more. "Forget the mysterious daredev… I mean, the gentleman. What about that pair of statues at the Mirabell Gardens?" Maria mimicked the pose of the well known statues.

"Maria, why is it that every handsome man you can think of is a naked statue?" Christina blurted out.

"Obviously because one cannot find handsome gentlemen in the flesh around every corner. Even if you could, they would be walking arm and arm with raving beauties – ladies, of course - and would not turn their perfectly formed heads to do as much as glance at a lowly, ordinary looking nun-in-training. Such creatures are very hard to come by, that is why there are so many statues of them." Theresa and Christina merely stared at one another. "Now, as for why the statues are nude you must ask the one who sculpted them, not me. I have no clue."

"What in heavens are you girls talking about?" The trio turned around, only to be faced with a very angry looking Sister Berthe. An ominous silence fell in the room. "I am waiting for an answer," the nun insisted. And she found the perfect target – Christina. The girl was usually very shy and soft spoken, and the first one to break down. "Christina?"

"Oh well – eh – we… we…"

"Yes?" Sister Berthe insisted.

Maria decided to come to her friend´s aid.

"Philosophy!" She said the word loudly, clasping her hands at the same time. The Mistress of Postulants nearly jumped. Her scowl turned immediately to her. Then her lips curved into a dangerous smile.

"Maria, do you care to enlighten me?"

"No. I really, really don´t."

"Hah!" The formidable nun threatened her with a gesture.

"Well, if you insist …" Maria bit her lower lip, then looked up, almost in a silent prayer for the Lord to help her to come up with a reasonable explanation.

"I do!"

"There is no need to be so stern, Sister Berthe. We were… we were…"

"I am waiting!"

Her prayers were answered, and she remembered a philosophy class, taught by Sister Berthe herself.

"We were discussing concepts such as the beautiful, the ugly, and the sublime… philosophically, of course, as applied to art and nature, of course, and how they are a sign of… of..." Sister Berthe raised her eyebrows. "Of the Good Lord´s supreme wisdom and… and…"

"And?"

"And extreme good taste!" she finished with a nod, satisfied with her quick answer. A few penance Hail Mary's before dinner would do to assuage her guilty conscience because of the small lie.

"Mmmm," the nun sneered, narrowing her eyes. "Never mind that now. I am here because of a very urgent and very important matter. But do not think you will get away from this one, Maria. I expect to see you in my study, that is, after the Reverend Mother is done with you. I suddenly developed an interested in your philosophical ideas…"

The three girls gasped, Maria's eyes went wide.

"After… the Reverend Mother is done with me?" Maria asked, confused.

"The Mother Abbess wishes to see you. Now."

But Maria was paralyzed. Her feet felt like they were glued to the floor.

"Have I gone too far this time?", she wondered. Today she had left the Abbey when it was still dark, to go to the mountains just one more time. She was back in time for her duties, but had anyone seen her leave? If that was the case, she could only hope, once more, for the Mother Abbess´s kind understanding and forgiveness.

At the Trapp villa, the Captain was doing what he usually did most of the time when he closed himself in his study – he was brooding.

It certainly had not been Frau Schmidt´s fault, but somebody was at fault, and he would not rest until he found the prankster – or pranksters – responsible for the series of events that began shortly after governess number eleven had left in the 10:40 bus to Salzburg.

Shortly after he told her about Elsa, he sensed that his children would not remain docile forever. The way they god rid of the psychologist governess had been spectacular, and the woman was gone from the house in record time.

Two hours.

However, he would hardly expect that now he would be the primary target of their pranks.

After Agathe died, he had locked away most of her belongings in the attic, including all wedding photographs, particularly the one the children accidentally mentioned that morning. He forbade everyone access to the room, with the exception of himself and one of the maids, who was in charge of cleaning the room every once in a while. He had one of the keys, and Frau Schmidt had the other. His was in a safe place, where not even one of the children would dare to look. He had no idea where the housekeeper kept her copy, but the woman had worked in his family for over two decades, and he had full and complete trust in her.

However, after the last governess was gone, he began to find Agathe´s things scattered all over the house. Always a small object – one of her favorite novels among his books in the library, a hairpin in a drawer in his bedside table, a handkerchief in the pocket of one of his jackets… At first, he had been only slightly annoyed, wondering how it was possible that those things had escaped his attention and were not yet placed in the attic.

Now this - the worst of all.

For the first time, he realized that he was meant to see those things, that someone wanted them to find them, and to think. To remember. It could only have been the children, of course. The book and the hairpin had been enough to reach the desired effect, and if his sons and daughters had been cunning enough, they would have stopped there. Obviously the success of their little plan had made them wish for more, and they acted impulsively and immaturely – they simply had not known how to stop when they were ahead of the game. Then handkerchief had made him suspicious. But the music box gave him the certainty he needed.

He found it on top of his desk that morning. It was a miniature carousel he had given Agathe on her first birthday after they were married. She had said it was the most beautiful and delicate thing she had ever held in her hands. He opened the box, and it began to play a song.

"Small and white,

Clean and bright,

You look happy

To meet me." (2)

It all became disturbingly quiet while the song played. It seemed that even the birds outside had stopped singing – or was it because he simply had stopped listening to them so long ago? Suddenly angry, he let out a curse from his old Navy days and slammed his fist against the table, the sound breaking the silence, after the last chords coming from the music box ended.

Why did they have to do that to him? The three eldest knew that simple music box meant to him, because whenever he was at sea, he would bring one to Agathe when he came home. Whenever he left again, she would chose one of the boxes for him to carry with him – all he had to do was to open it and the soft notes would instantly feel like she was next to him. It was one of the many little traditions they had created together.

The worst part was that he even felt powerless to confront his children. Because that would give them exactly what they wanted – his attention – his weakness to his memories. They apparently thought that he did not realize the intentions behind every little prank; on the contrary, he saw right through them. But in order to admit defeat and give them what they wanted, he would have to face them, to talk to them. And he just did not know how to do that anymore. He felt that he no longer knew them, not after those three endless years. Their only connection had been through a series of governess who ended up leaving enraged, whenever they proved unable to control their charges.

Georg von Trapp took the small music box and placed it in his bottom drawer, on top of her book and other objects which the children had somehow smuggled from the attic. The drawer was then locked, the memories shut inside once more.

All that was left was the faint hope that the new governess sent from Nonnberg would remain long enough until his situation with Elsa was defined.

Until he knew if she could love him and his children...

A/N: (1) Psalm 100. (2) Rodgers & Hammerstein, Edelweiss.