Horizon (13 page)

“What’s happened?” Just when all the plans seemed ripe something had gone wrong. His good temper had vanished: he was worrying and heart-sick once more.

“Nothing. Not yet. Some Germans have come to the village.
They’ve opened a police station, and they’ve put up notices that all men must register there today. The Germans are watching the processions and the people. They are very quiet and friendly. But they have two lorries hidden half a mile from the village. Andreas Wenter saw them as he was taking a short-cut to the village this morning. Paul Mahlknecht thinks the lorries have come for men to work in labour gangs on the Brenner railway. That’s what some of us think, although many won’t believe it. But the younger men believe it. They’ve listened to Paul Mahlknecht. They are all slipping out of the village before the dance begins this evening, for that’s when the Germans would expect all the young people to be together.”

She had already started to descend the path. He caught up with her, his mind filled with questions.

“Why were
you
sent here?” he asked.

She answered, “I was sent home by my mother. I’m in disgrace.” She wasn’t smiling. She was very serious, and he restrained a laugh in time.

“What...?” he began. But she shook her head. “Later,” she said. “We must hurry now.”

He was thinking partly that she was neither so young nor so helpless as he had first thought; and partly that the people of Hinterwald must be having a difficult time at their feast-day celebrations. What with Germans...two important strangers wandering in to join the fun...mothers sending daughters home in disgrace... He wondered if the stolid faces were still as expressionless, if the processions and all the other formalities were still following the usual routine. The postponed laugh began to take shape, and couldn’t be controlled this time.

“It isn’t funny,” the girl said reproachfully.

“No,” he agreed, “it isn’t funny.” But he went on laughing to himself.

The sound of a motor-car checked him. The girl looked at him anxiously. They halted, listening, judging the distance by sound. The car stopped. It was near them; perhaps in front of the Schichtl house. Quickly, he grasped her arm and led her to the left. They must get off this path. The girl not only understood that, she was untying the too bright apron from her waist, folding it up tightly to carry in her hand. If Lennox hadn’t been so worried he would have been surprised. She understood, all right.

“Let’s get to the edge of the wood. Let’s see,” he whispered. She nodded, following him obediently. He must see, he thought desperately. He had to know what was happening down on that road.

When they reached the edge of the wood it was the girl who led him to a point where the trees were thick enough for safety. From there they could watch the Schichtl house and the Kasal farm and the road in between. Lennox nodded, well-pleased.

He could see the car, drawn up at the left corner of the Schichtl house. German, of course. None of the people of this district owned a car. Two men were seated in the car, waiting. Civilian dress. Two others in black uniforms were coming out of the Schichtl house. They halted at the car. Much talking. The two civilians got out of the car. The two uniforms got in. The car, slipping in the mud, was turned around and pointed back to the village. The two civilians walked towards the Kasal farm. They went into the house. They came out. Then they walked round to the barn at its side. One was offering the other a cigarette. They were settling down for a long watch. They
were hidden now by the barn. They didn’t reappear.

Lennox drew a deep breath. The girl was saying, her voice desolate, worry drawing her brows together, “We must leave now. Without food or proper clothes. We must leave.”

Lennox was thinking. So they
were
Germans. We were right. They were Germans, and not American flyers. For the two civilians, who had so leisurely lighted cigarettes and had wandered so innocently towards the cover of the farm buildings, were of the same build and size and colouring as the two men who had come yesterday to the Schichtl house. Somehow he was suddenly glad of this moment which had proved yesterday’s decision.

“Please.” The girl was shaking his arm. “Please, we must go. We must get to Schönau and tell them. We must go.” She was frightened now.

Lennox touched her shoulder encouragingly. “Don’t worry,” he said awkwardly. “They’ve only chosen your barn so that they can have a comfortable front-view of the Schichtl house.”

She nodded, and bit her lip. “We must tell Uncle Paul,” she said. “Come.” He realised then that she wasn’t afraid for the Kasal house: her fear was for the Schichtls. They backed carefully away from the outside fringe of pines. And then, safely in the depth of the wood, they began to climb. Lennox didn’t speak at first. He was trying to get his thoughts into order. These two Germans had come back to the Schichtl house because they could identify the men in it. But why had they come back? Why the openly official visit? Had they learned his true identity? They were waiting, certainly. For what? For him, or for Paul Mahlknecht, or for... He suddenly thought of the two “friends” whom the girl had mentioned in her first
sentence. Had they been seen landing, and followed? Had their parachutes been discovered? Was the Schichtl house naturally suspected? Was the search on? He suddenly felt that he knew only half of this danger: Mahlknecht and Johann would know the other half. Together, they’d form a clearer picture. He forgot he was tired, forgot he was hungry. He only remembered the need to get to this Schönau, wherever it was. He followed the girl, watching the way she moved so easily, so capably. Mahlknecht had been right: the people who lived in this country made excellent guides. They knew the terrain: walking and climbing was a natural way for them to spend their free time. It was as natural for them to scale these mountains above, as it was for people at home to put on their best hats on Sunday afternoons for a stroll in the parks. He kept the girl’s steady pace, content to let her choose the path.

They had come to the north-east corner of the wood. The lower mountain slope, with its mixture of grass and small shrubs, lay before them.

The girl spoke for the first time. “We cross this until we reach the valley, which leads up in between that group of mountains.” She pointed to three towering peaks of rock. “Schönau is the name we give the alp in the middle of the high forest up there.”

Lennox nodded. He could neither see any valley, nor any sign of a higher forest. All he could see were the bold precipices of the mountains and this lower slope falling to the wood where they now stood.

“Where’s the path?” he asked.

“Here.” She smiled. “You will get accustomed to seeing it. It is difficult for strangers’ eyes at first.”

Lennox said nothing. He still couldn’t see any path. She sensed his annoyance, for she turned the conversation politely.
“You knew where I lived. Do you know my name, too?”

“Katharina Kasal.”

She laughed and said, “And I know who you are.”

He pretended to smile. He said very quietly, “And who am I?”

“Peter Schichtl, of course.”

His smile became easier. “How did you know I was Peter Schichtl?”

She hesitated, looking sideways at him, and then said with considerable embarrassment, “I saw you. I saw you sometimes taking a short walk to the wood at night. My bedroom window has a good view of this wood, you see. Then one day I asked your aunt who you were.”

“And what did your father and mother say?” He tried to keep his voice amused, but he wasn’t feeling quite so casual as his question. Alois Kasal was one of the men on Mahlknecht’s doubtful list: Alois Kasal was a most annoying neutral. Suddenly the whole winter of secrecy and imprisonment seemed a complete farce.

The girl’s quiet voice said, “I didn’t tell my father or my mother. I was supposed to be asleep, not standing at a window looking at night on the mountains. You see,” and she was smiling, “I am always doing wrong things.”

“What did you do that was wrong today?”

She looked at him, and she was suddenly grave. “You shouldn’t keep laughing at me,” she said with Frau Schichtl-like dignity. “It was nothing very much, anyway. I gathered the school children and told them not to go back to the school until Frau Schichtl was again their teacher.”

“You did what?” His voice was suddenly serious. “Who heard you?”

“The children. And then my mother and Eva Mussner arrived just as I was finishing my talk.”

He looked at her so intently that she lost her smile. “You are just as bad as my mother or Eva Mussner,” she said angrily. “Don’t you see something has got to be done about the school? Now, hurry; I have got to take you to Schönau and then get back home before my mother or father returns. Don’t you understand?”

“I didn’t.” He was abrupt and angry. He wasn’t thinking about the need for hurry. He was still thinking about this girl’s words in the village. And Eva Mussner had heard them. “I am only asking you questions to try to understand. You don’t explain much, do you?”

She didn’t answer, but turned her back to him. She was taking off her stockings and shoes. She faced him once more, her cheeks still more highly coloured. “My mother would be angrier if I were to ruin these shoes,” she said. She laid the shoes and stockings and the pink apron neatly together behind a large rock, placing a stone carefully over them as an anchor.

“It won’t be comfortable walking that way,” he said.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve no choice. Now we’ll hurry.”

“May we talk? I’d like to hear what has been happening at the village.” He had started worrying again. The name of Eva Mussner was a bad omen. He began to wonder how much she had actually learned from Johann. The boy had sworn last night that he had told her nothing, but some women didn’t need to be told very much. They guessed too easily. And now she had heard Katharina inciting a revolt among school children. He didn’t like this Eva Mussner. He didn’t like her at all.

Katharina said, “Of course we can talk—if we have any breath left. But I’ve already told you all about today in the village.” She started forward impatiently. She obviously thought that this Schichtl nephew wasn’t very bright. And Lennox didn’t argue. As a Tyrolese, he ought to have had a picture of today in the village quite clearly fixed in his mind’s eye. He followed her in silence, noting that there was indeed a path, barely perceptible and narrow as a sheep-track. It led them north, away from Hinterwald. Gradually it ascended the steep shoulder of the hillside. Above them, to their right, were the large teeth-like ridges of dolomite rock. The sun was warm now. There was silence everywhere. There was no other living thing in sight.

When the roughest piece of climbing was over Lennox said determinedly, “Tell me everything that happened from the moment you left your house this morning.”

Katharina threw a quick glance over her shoulder. Her face showed surprise, but her pace kept the same unbroken rhythm.

“Is it important?” she asked. “Really important?”

“Yes.” He had to know. It might tell him why the Germans had come back to the Schichtl house. He had to know whether they were there to question, or there to arrest. He knew, when she began to talk, that she was trying to obey him fully. For she began with the moment when she had looked back at the Schichtl house. Sometimes she would pause and say, “Am I telling you too many things? Do you want all this?” And he would answer, “Go on. This is what I want to know.” He began to feel as if he had been in Hinterwald himself that day. He became more sure of his judgment.

First there had been mass at the little church. Then there had
been a procession. The holy image of St. Johann was carried through the village balanced on the shoulders of four young men. Behind them walked the older men, then the women, then the children. Latecomers in everyday clothes waited quietly at the side of the street. This year a larger crowd than ever had gathered to watch the festival. Many had come from distant villages. Some had come from other districts and valleys. It was a true gathering-day.

Among those dressed in ordinary peasant clothes were two men whom Katharina couldn’t remember. But they must have been relatives or friends of Josef Schroffenegger, for they sat at his breakfast-table in the Hotel Post’s garden after the procession. Josef Schroffenegger had a large party round him that morning. There were two men from the Grödner Tal and one from Seis, and one from the Tschamin Tal. Paul Mahlknecht and other men of the Hinterwald had talked to the two strangers, too. So, although Katharina couldn’t remember who they were, they were certainly recognised by Paul Mahlknecht and Josef Schroffenegger and their friends. Eva Mussner had asked who they were, and the owner of the Hotel Post had said, “Don’t you remember them? Why, they are Ludwig Plank’s boys, who used to live over in the Grödner Tal.” And then of course everyone remembered Ludwig Plank, and no one had asked anything more about his sons. Eva Mussner said of course they had changed, and Frau Schichtl had said, “Well, none of us get any younger.”

After breakfast there was a second procession—this time with a band and gay music. It was then that the Germans appeared. They were dressed in police uniforms. They stood outside the Golden Roof Inn, and they were enjoying the music. But all
round the village large notices had been posted while the people had eaten breakfast. The notices said that every man between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five years was to register at the new police station today. No one paid much attention to all this, because no one was going to bother to register. They hadn’t registered last February when that regulation had been made a law. They weren’t going to register now. Six German policemen weren’t going to make them. Then the man Wenter arrived.

He was very late. His wife had just given birth to twins, and he had hurried from his farm to tell the good news to his friends in Hinterwald. He came by short-cuts over little-used paths. That was how he had seen the two German lorries, and German soldiers sitting on the grass beside them. The trucks were well-hidden, and they were scarcely a mile from the village. Wenter didn’t let the Germans see him. He came to Hinterwald and told everyone about the twins. Then he had joined the procession, walking between Schroffenegger and Plank’s sons. Before the time for resting came, when the women went visiting in the different houses and the men gathered round the tables in the inns, everyone who could be trusted knew about the German lorries. Only people like Mussner hadn’t been told; everyone was avoiding them, anyway.