I'm so sorry for the delay in posting this update. Not only was it my holiday season, but I have spent three weeks fighting off Covid. Also, this was really hard to write. I had an ambitious vision for this chapter, and you will have to judge for yourself if I pulled it off. I did give you a bonus poem at the end though! Anyway, when we last left Maria, she was hiding in a church after failing to come to the Captain's aid when he was attacked by Willem and cronies. She had come into possession of the Captain's medal and a wallet full of money, but fear and shame chased her from Vienna and back to Father Leo and her home village of Dusterbach. Enjoy!
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A TRIP AROUND THE SUN
Part 1: WINTER
"Happy Christmas, Maria."
Maria struggled awake. Inside the cottage, it was so cold she could see her breath.
"What time is it, Father?"
"6 am. A priest doesn't get much sleep on Christmas, even in a place like Dusterbach. How many of us were there for midnight Mass – ten? Twelve?"
She dutifully crawled from bed and went to stir the fire. Father Leo had been endlessly kind to her since her return to Dusterbach a month ago. He'd fixed himself a sleeping place in the church so that she could have privacy and comfort in the little cottage. Even better, he hadn't pried, refraining from asking her why she had returned from Vienna with nothing but the shabby red dress on her back and what she told him was 'a few shillings' in savings. The least she could do in return was to try and look after him.
Father Leo knew nothing of the Captain's medal, which was tucked away under her mattress, along with the wallet which was, in fact, still richly stuffed with hundreds of shillings she could not bring herself to spend. More than once, Maria had considered telling Father Leo about everything that had gone wrong in Vienna, but something held her back. And that "something," she knew, was shame and guilt for having abandoned the Captain in a Vienna street and choosing to flee with his belongings. Surely, the man deserved better: perhaps he had turned away her clumsy advances, but he had also tried to protect her from Willem. Time after time, she reminded herself that she could not have intervened on the Captain's behalf without Willem turning on her, and with no expectation of assistance. But whenever she when she caught sight of her reflection, in a window or in the small scrap of mirror nailed over the washstand, Maria found herself turning away from the sight of a girl so singlehandedly focused on her own future that she had nearly cost another human being his life.
"There's just the one Mass this morning," Father broke into her thoughts. "And after dinner, Maria, we're going to have a chat."
The whole time Maria was in church, her mind repeatedly wandered to the promised "chat." How she hoped that he would not force her to talk about what had happened in Vienna! But it turned out that Father Leo was interested in something other than Maria's misadventures in Vienna.
"I don't know what brought you back here, Maria. But you are not a child anymore, you are a young woman. You must find out what the will of God is for you, and then do it wholeheartedly."
"I'm pretty sure He hasn't got any sort of plan, not for me, Father." She tried to sound lighthearted, although since her return to Dusterbach, she'd felt unmoored without her life plan to guide her. She wasn't going to be a bookkeeper, but what would she be instead?
"Oh, He does, and He will show it to you in His own good time. But in the meanwhile, you need to make a contribution. And to keep busy. You know there is no longer a school here, but there are two children – a girl turning seven on Tuesday, and a boy of nine who hasn't been taught to read. They need an education and you, Maria, are going to give it to them."
"Children?" Maria couldn't control the note of dismay. Her mind flew back to the long, dull afternoons she'd spent giving piano lessons.
"Don't you like children, Maria?"
"Y-yes, but -"
Father Leo had taken her in when she had nowhere to go, so what choice did she have? At least she wouldn't be giving piano lessons, for there was nothing resembling a piano within miles of Dusterbach. Perhaps "making a contribution," as he put it, would ease the constantly present pinch of guilt.
Which was how, a week after Christmas, Maria found herself in a makeshift classroom hastily arranged in the cottage, stocked with supplies and a few books she'd been able to buy on a brief trip to Salzburg, with help from the Captain's wallet.
"We'll start with arithmetic, then." Back in her bookkeeping days, Maria had always liked numbers. She laid out a pile of pebbles she'd collected. "Rupert, I want you to show me some different ways to make 24 pebbles." Then she turned and began to help Martina.
"So if you have two, and I give you three more, that makes how many?" But Martina only looked puzzled. Maria sighed. "Let me see if I can make it easier for you." The little girl nodded obediently and crawled deep into Maria's lap. A little girl starved for love at home; Maria could certainly relate to that, and that in turn fed her confidence.
Meanwhile, Maria noted with satisfaction, Rupert had already figured out the concept of multiplication tables, even if he didn't know it. "Right! Four piles of six, or three piles of eight, and so on!" For the first time in months, she felt excited, whether by the boy's grin of accomplishment, or her own.
When it came to reading, things were reversed.
"When we read, we begin with?"
"A, B, C," Martina answered eagerly, reaching for the simple worksheet Maria had prepared, and settling down to trace the simple words.
"Don't know how to read," Rupert shrugged. "Don't need to, is what my papa says."
Maria ran her hand through her hair and tried to think. "Very well then, I'll read to you." She had bought a few books on her trip to Salzburg. Opening the most promising one, she began to read of pirates and buried treasure and ships' cannons, only to slam the book closed at the most exciting part.
"What happened next?" Rupert demanded. "You can't stop there!"
"Oh yes, I can," Maria said slyly.
"Can you teach me to read it tomorrow?"
"Not in just one day, no," Maria laughed, trying not to gloat, "but I'll keep reading this one to you if you will try to learn, and I promise you, Rupert, that in another few months, you will be able to read any book about pirates I put in front of you."
"If I learn my numbers, will you teach me to play this?" Martina had retrieved Father Leo's battered guitar from where it stood in a shadowy corner.
"Oh, Martina, I don't know. I'm not really the musical type. What if I braid your hair up instead, all elegant like the ladies in Salzburg?"
"How was the first day of school?" Father Leo asked later, over supper.
"They're coming back tomorrow, so I must have done something good," Maria told him. During the hours she had spent with her students, she'd felt oddly light, as though a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. It was nice to feel needed.
But when she went to bed that night, it was as though she felt the medal and the wallet, buried below the sturdy mattress, prodding at her conscience.
OoOoOoO
Part 2: SPRING
"How is school coming along?" Father Leo asked over supper one night.
"Oh, we're having a marvelous time!" Maria replied, one hand swiping the last bit of soup in her bowl with a bit of bread while the other reached for the last apple. She was always especially hungry after an afternoon with Rupert and Martina. "Rupert is reading nearly as well as a high school boy, and Martina is almost ready for times tables!"
"I thought you didn't like children, Maria?"
"Y-yes, well – this is different, somehow. And listen, Father, speaking of school, there's something I need help with-"
"Because," Father Leo continued. "I've been thinking and wondering about something. When you were in Vienna, Maria, why were you giving piano lessons?"
"To make money, so I could support myself. And pay my school fees. What a chore those lessons were! Why, I don't even like the piano! Or any music, really."
"I see. And why are you teaching here in Dusterbach? Because it doesn't seem like a chore, and you're not even getting paid. Yet you seem to enjoy it."
"I'm teaching them because you told me to," Maria reminded him, laughing, as she rose to clear away their supper dishes. "To make a contribution, you said, and to keep busy. And something about God's will."
"Perhaps it's the difference between doing something for yourself and doing it for someone else." Father suggested mildly. "Now, what was it you needed my help with?"
"This," Maria grabbed the shabby guitar from its corner and held it at arms' length. "Do you think it still works?"
"Of course it does. Replace the strings and give it a polish, and it will be good as new," Father Leo dug around in the cupboard and produced a spare set of strings. "Are you taking up playing again?"
"Me? I don't remember anything about the guitar. Only the little bit of piano I had for my students. But Martina has had her eye on the thing since our first day of school, and the little one has worked so hard, that I thought you might be able to show her."
By now, Father Leo held the guitar in his arms and was coaxing a few brittle notes from it.
"Small and white…" he muttered, "clean and bright…"
"What's that?" Maria said sharply.
"That's – hold on. I think it was -" Father looked up at the ceiling as though the Lord himself might supply the answer. "That's it! The Edelweiss song. It was one of your father's favorites, you know."
Maria remembered nothing of her father, who had died just before her first birthday. All she had of him were the memories shared by her mother, who followed him into the grave a dozen years later.
"He used to say that it summed up everything he loved – nature's beauty, Austria, dancing with your mother – it's a waltz, you know. He used to sing it while he waltzed around their little house with you in his arms. And after he was gone, your mother used to say it was the one lullaby that would always soothe you, no matter how cross you were. You don't remember her starting you on the guitar?"
Maria let him settle the guitar in her lap, but her arms felt too stiff and awkward to embrace it. She squeezed her eyes closed but failed to summon any memory at all.
"He loved you ferociously, Maria. They both did. I think it was harder on your mother. He never knew – it was a logging accident, you know, he was gone in an instant. But your mother knew her fate. She hung on longer than any of us expected, I think because she didn't want to leave you alone. We reassured her that we'd look out for you, and we did, here in Dusterbach, but your uncle-" he broke off with a sigh. "We should have done better by you. All of us, but me especially."
"Oh, Father, you know that's not true. You were the one person who I knew was always watching out for me. I don't know what I'd have done without you! You have nothing to apologize for."
The old man shook his head. "The Lord was watching out for you, Maria, all along. Even during the years when your uncle neglected you. During your wretched interlude in Vienna that you don't want to talk about, too. Something went wrong for you there, didn't it? In Vienna, I mean. I can't help thinking about you as a young girl, so full of music, and joy, and that if only I-"
Maria stood so suddenly that the guitar tumbled to the floor. "I don't want to talk about Vienna. Some things are better left in the past, Father Leo. You have nothing to feel guilty about, I can assure you."
Nothing, she thought to herself, compared to the burden I still carry.
OoOoOoO
Part 3: SUMMER
"How did they take the news?" Father Leo asked over supper.
Maria couldn't hold back a smug grin. "Do you know, when I explained that we would not be having school for a bit, so that they might help with farm chores that pile up this time of year, they were actually disappointed!"
School had been satisfying. If she ever returned to Vienna, perhaps she'd become a teacher. She could practically hear Lolly gloating with delight - "I told you so, Maria!" - and could feel the retort form on her lips, that after all, teachers could make a secure living, just as much as bookkeepers did. But deep inside, Maria knew she could never return to Vienna. She couldn't imagine herself in Vienna without the shadowy presence of Willem and the Captain, enemies joined together to hunt her down in the quest for revenge.
"What will you do to occupy yourself this summer, Maria?"
Maria shook off her dark thoughts about Vienna. "I'll be busy looking for God's will, of course!" she teased. "But while I'm waiting to find it, I'm thinking I might take in some sewing. Rupert's outgrown all his clothes, and his mother so busy with the farm and the new baby, I thought I might try to help with his clothes. I used to do fine sewing, back in Vienna, but there wasn't much purpose to it." This was a lesson learned in her return to Dusterbach: tedious work was made easier when done in the service of others.
Sewing helped pass the days, but as word of her new skills got out, she quickly found herself running out of the basics: material, needles and thread. Dusterbach's residents had precious little money to buy those things themselves. Here was another good use for the Captain's money, Maria thought, and she was off to Salzburg to stock up.
But she didn't make it to Salzburg, not the next day, anyway.
Maria set out early on the steep path that led down into the valley but found herself distracted by the splendor that lay all around her – leafy forests, birds soaring overhead, lush green meadows, majestic mountains reaching into an impossibly blue sky. Without the pressure of time calling her back to her students, she found herself lingering. She stopped to pick a daisy, skipped a stone across a brook, scampered across a grassy meadow, stopped to rest beneath a grove of fragrant pines.
As a girl, she had spent so much time on the mountain she had considered it her property. "That's my mountain," she used to say. But that had changed when her mother died. Why had she stayed away for so long?
Overhead, a lark trilled: la LA la-la-la. And again, la LA la-la-la.
Maria knew that melody, and the familiar voice in her ears that echoed it a moment later, a voice so unbelievably real, it was as though her mother were right there by her side.
I go to the hills, she heard her mother's voice, when my heart is lonely.
My heart has been lonely, and for a long time, too, Maria thought. Had her mother been waiting for her here on the mountain all along? Somewhere deep within, she felt something loosen, a knot come untied. She spent the rest of the day romping about the mountain, staying until the long green shadows chased her home to the cottage.
Father Leo met her at the door. "I'd forgotten," was all that she could manage to tell him. She wasn't yet able to put it all into words: how the mountain had returned to her, along with her mother's memory, and music, how she was beginning to see that her broken heart had led her to push away the very things that might have healed it.
Despite the questions written all over his face, dear Father Leo simply patted her arm and went off to arrange their supper while Maria retrieved the old guitar, which now seemed to fit into her arms as though she had put it aside hours ago rather than years. Her fingers pressed and picked at the strings as though they had a memory of their own, summoning folksongs and lullabies. Along with the music came a flood of memories of her mother. At first, she examined her thoughts gingerly, as though poking at a not-quite-healed wound, but she quickly learned that the memories brought her only comfort and even joy.
Not until she was in bed, did she realize that, for the first time since leaving Vienna, she had gone an entire day without thinking about stolen wallets and Captains and criminals lurking in bars and medals and deserted parks. She had barely given her uncle a thought as well. Maria knew she had much to account for – the wallet and medal were still tucked beneath her mattress – but somehow, she felt at peace.
OoOoOoO
Part 4: AUTUMN
For the rest of the summer, Maria found time to sew for her Dusterbach neighbors, but she divided most of her time between rambling about the mountain in all kinds of weather and roaming the streets of Salzburg for free music during the annual festival. She had come a long way from the boredom of giving piano lessons. Lately she found herself ravenous for all sorts of music, and the old guitar had become her constant companion. At night, she pressed Father Leo for stories about her parents, stories that filled her heart and mind and pushed away the bitter memories of her uncle that she'd let chase her to Vienna. One afternoon, when she caught sight of herself in a Salzburg shop window, she barely recognized the girl who had arrived in Dusterbach nearly a year ago, consumed by guilt and shame. She was a different person now, one who had done her best to turn those misdeeds into something positive, and she felt that she was at peace.
She was busy, too, preparing for another year of lessons for Rupert and Marina. There was only one week left until school was to begin again. But the little school had a limited future: Marina's parents would be moving down into Salzburg after the first of the year, and by then, Rupert would be ready for the grammar school in Salzburg. There were no more children in Dusterbach for Maria to teach. Perhaps because she was more at peace about her past in Dusterbach, Maria's thoughts returned more frequently to the question of her future. She no longer felt the need for the kind of rigid blueprint she'd taken with her to Vienna – what good had that done her? But what would she do instead? If she asked Father Leo for advice, he'd talk about the will of God, but where was she to go to find it?
It was these thoughts that occupied Maria one morning when she put aside her guitar and prepared for a trip down to Salzburg for new school supplies. Determined to focus on her errand, she kept to the downhill path and avoided the lure of the meadows and mountains on either side. She was nearly at the turnoff into Salzburg when the sound floated up from Nonnberg Abbey:
Rex admirabilis
Et triumphator nobilis
Dulcedo ineffabilis, ineffabilis
Totus desiderabilis
Totus desiderabilis
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia
Up until that moment, Maria hadn't had a name for the feelings that had stirred to life that spring afternoon on the mountain, and that had grown bigger in her chest all summer. But the music emanating from the Abbey made her feel as though she might explode for joy. The choir's angelic voices reached deep inside her soul, and the majestic sound seemed to wrap itself around her heart. It was the same kind of feeling that she got on the mountain, of being vanishingly small, yet safe.
Yearning to get closer to the music, she scrambled up a nearby tree that let her look down into the Abbey yard, just in time to see the sisters stream out of the chapel and spread out among the garden, the barn and elsewhere.
Every day during that last week of summer, Maria returned to her seat in the tree overlooking Nonnberg Abbey, where she could watch the sisters work, and listen to them sing. And then there was only one day left before school.
"Now or never," Maria muttered to herself, giving the bell on the Abbey wall a good yank.
"May I help you?" said the sweet-faced nun who appeared at the gate.
"I'd like to see – ehrm – the boss," Maria fumbled. "The person in charge, I mean."
"Oh, dear," the sister said sympathetically. "I'm afraid the Reverend Mother doesn't see visitors very often, and only with an appointment."
"Well, then, could I make an appointment? I just want to ask about – ehrm-" Maria wasn't entirely sure what it was she wanted to ask, though.
"Out of the question, Sister Margarethe!" scowled a tall nun with a disapproving face who appeared nearby. "Reverend Mother doesn't have time for every flibbertigibbet who happens by."
"Why don't you let me be the judge of that, Sister Berthe?" and now a third nun had joined the conversation. She was the shortest, roundest, and oldest of the group, and she wore a natural air of authority that made the enormous crucifix on her chest a superfluous accessory. This woman was clearly the boss. "Why don't you come with me, dear?"
Ten minutes later, Maria was seated with a cup of tea in the office of the woman she now knew to be the Mother Abbess of Nonnberg Abbey. The office was dark and imposing, but the Mother's eyes were kind, with a bit of a twinkle.
"I – I'm sorry, I don't really know why I came," Maria confessed. "I don't even know what it is you do here."
"Here? Why, it's simple. We look for the will of God, and then do it wholeheartedly."
That was what Father Leo had said!
"Could you help me find the will of God?"
"Of course, my child. The question is whether you are prepared for the way we live here."
"I can do it! I can! Whatever you expect, I can-"
"The question, Maria, is whether you can expect it of yourself. That, my child, we will discover in the Lord's own good time."
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One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
–Mary Oliver
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Thank you for reading my story. Please leave me a review and let me know your thoughts. I don't own anything about TSOM.