Winter Passing (21 page)

“We have half the letters translated,” Professor Voss said as Darby’s white breath was cut in two when she closed the door to the phone booth. The cold morning shone with the covering of new snow on trees and walkways, a crystal blanket of white.

“Do they offer any information?” she asked, warming her mittened hand by rubbing it against the side of the phone.

“Not really. They are all letters your grandmother wrote to your grandfather over the past sixty years. They tell what is happening in her life, how much she misses him, the life events of her daughter, and later, grandchildren.”

“Why do you think they were written in German? My grandmother never spoke one word of German that I ever heard—until on her deathbed.”

“I am no psychologist, but perhaps, because of her vow to never speak German, it helped to write the letters. Or maybe she held a bit of hope that she would someday find Gunther and be able to give them to him.”

“It’s pretty sad,” Darby said.

“
Ja
, but also very inspiring. They had great love. So you are returning to Salzburg?”

“I’m going to Vienna,” she said and began to shiver.

“What is happening?”

“I found out for certain that Bruno Weiler knew both my grandmother and Tatianna. His aunt and mother lived in Vienna after the war. Perhaps I’ll find one of them in the city or another Weiler. Since I’m partway there, I decided I might as well see your capital before returning to Salzburg.”

“You will probably find nothing, but a trip to Vienna is essential for all travelers at one time or another. There are also many places with archives in Vienna, but in German, of course. I wish I could be there to help, but I have classes all week.”

“I’ll make a quick trip and see what I can find.” Darby’s teeth chattered. “I have so many trails to follow. There is the search for the brooch and coins. This morning I asked at the museum if any Celtic coins had been discovered in Hallstatt, but they said no. Then there’s finding proof about Tatianna, and I’d like to gain more information about my family, especially my grandfather.”

“It seems Bruno Weiler is the key to many things now.”

“Yes.” Her entire body was shivering, and Darby wished for more of the warm fruit tea she’d had at breakfast. “But I’m freezing out here, so I’ll call you from Vienna.”

“Katrine is here and says to go to Demel’s Bakery. It is the best in Vienna.”

“I’ll do it.”

“And Darby.” Professor Voss’s usually cheerful voice sounded serious. “Be careful.”

Brant had accomplished little of his workload in the last two days with two companies pressuring him to finish his end of the work. He received notice that he would not be called as a witness after all in the Aldrich case—the duo had opted for a plea bargain. Part of him was relieved; another part longed to face the man and woman and give his testimony. But beyond the Aldrich case, much more was bothering him. He had to decide what to do about Darby. Should he simply tell her everything and see what happened? Suddenly, Brant knew. Professor Peter Voss. Darby said the professor believed her. Once Brant told him the facts, that could change, and Peter would know what to do next.

Brant consulted his desktop Rolodex and punched in the phone number.

“Peter, this is Brant. I need to talk to you.”

“Well, all I must say is, it is about time.”

Brant shook his head. “Then you really do believe all of this.”

“Definitely. Why do you not?”

“Because it can’t be true.”

“Why not?”

Gunther. Gunther could not have been wrong all these years.
“We need to talk. I’ll be right there.”

Darby had ridden a train only once, and that was an antique locomotive in Mount Shasta, California, which included a staged train robbery. The trains of Europe were like moving from a Model T Ford to a modern sports car. They were a reliable way of transportation here—running on schedule, efficient, and comfortable. She climbed aboard a nonsmoking car and found a vacant section where the seating was divided into separate rooms. As she stored her luggage overhead, the train
whooshed
from the Hallstatt station. The Eurail pass she’d purchased in Salzburg allowed a week of travel over a four-month period. If Vienna didn’t work out, Darby could board a train and go nearly anywhere in Europe. By morning she could be in Paris or Rome or Amsterdam—the thought was tempting.

Snow flurries turned to raindrops as the train journeyed from the northern mountains to the open rolling hills of Upper Austria into the Danube region. After a while near the Danube, Darby looked up from her Austrian Tours map toward the direction of Mauthausen. She was back, riding past what would forever rest on the hillside with its ghosts and ash pile.

The rolling hills and fields succumbed to dense forest—the Vienna Woods that led into the heart of the city itself. Darby grabbed her bag and waited for the doors to slide open. She quickly walked through the smoky train station toward the exit, then halted, gazing up at the buildings and bustle and feeling like Mary Tyler Moore. She breathed the city—ah, Vienna! Home for centuries to artists, musicians, culture, and coffeehouses. The imperial city was a bridge between the East and West, a mixture of cultures and ethnic groups from Viennese to Slavic heritages. These streets had seen empires rise and fall, had been the toast of the classical world and the host for Cold War conferences where surely spies met their contacts with plots of espionage.

Darby had read about the city in her guidebook like every good tourist should, but added her own notes from her grandmother’s stories. For Vienna had also welcomed a newly wed couple for their honeymoon. Darby remembered her grandmother saying, “Salzburg is quaint with charm—your darling welcoming with outstretched arms. Vienna is like an enchanter who draws you with his sophistication, though you fear his power.”

Darby felt small in the midst of the enchanter. The afternoon sky sprinkled snow flurries as she hurried toward a line of taxis parked along the street. Though she hadn’t made hotel reservations, there was no doubt where she’d stay, despite the cost.

“Hotel Sacher, please,
bitte
,” Darby said as the driver of a white Mercedes took her lone duffel bag.

“Ah,” the man said with a smile. “Very good choice.”

The Mercedes zipped forward, darting in and out of traffic. Darby wanted to look at the map and out the window toward the sights, but she kept her eyes on the road ahead. This was carsick travel. As a delivery truck whirled past them and then they zipped around two cars, Darby knew she’d made the right decision not to rent a car with these crazy streets and crazier drivers. They zoomed past a long park and again Darby wished she could read her guidebook and map. Unlike Salzburg, with the Old City and sights in the same area, Vienna stretched out with its palaces, parliament buildings, opera houses, parks, and historical sites scattered around the huge “inner stadt” or city center. The famous Ringstraße hemmed it all into a labyrinth of connected one-way streets, with the Danube River making a flowing barrier on one end.

Darby was completely turned around, believing they should be leaving the city, when she saw the massive State Opera House. The taxi stopped on the opposite side of the street. She stepped out of the cab and looked up to a towering hotel with red banners and flags fluttering in the late afternoon breeze. Hotel Sacher.

The driver tipped his hat before speeding away. Darby stood at the red carpet entrance, staring up at the luxurious hotel. Her faded jeans, brown boots in need of polish, and brown, hip-length leather jacket didn’t quite fit with the opulence of the hotel, but she eagerly walked inside anyway.

The receptionist smiled and found a single room for over two hundred and fifty United States dollars. Darby signed the paper with a twinge of guilt for spending so much. But it didn’t take long to feel it was well worth the cost. She found a hall of photographs of VIP guests: Ernest Hemingway, Princess Caroline of Monaco, John F. Kennedy, Queen Elizabeth II of England, the Dalai Lama, and Thomas Mann, to name a few. She smiled at the portrait of the Bee Gees, then spotted Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austria’s golden boy. All were guests of the famous Hotel Sacher, where she arrived alone with her duffel bag. The Sacher had been built in the 1870s on the site of the Kärntner Tor Theatre where Beethoven premiered his
Ninth Symphony
.

Darby took the elevator up and entered her room, feeling like a princess arriving at her royal chamber. The room was fit for royalty with chandeliers, mint-green carpet, and matching bedspread and curtains. A white ornate desk and chair sat near a window, and beautiful oil paintings adorned the walls. Somewhere in this same hotel, her grandparents had spent their first nights of love together. The thought made her single bed look very lonely. Darby tugged on the gold chain and studied the ring on the end of it. She ran her finger around the edge. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you? This time you’re alone without your other half. A lot like I am.”

Darby took off the necklace and settled for a luscious bubble bath before plopping on the bed and perusing the room-service menu. She called in and chose the W
iener schnitzel
with
Sachertorte
for dessert.

The history of the hotel’s famous dessert was created before the hotel was even built, a brochure read. In 1832, Franz Sacher was an apprentice chef when Prince Metternich requested a special dessert for his elite guests. The problem—the head chef was ill and sixteen-year-old Franz was assigned the task. Now the Sacher annually used one million eggs, 70 tons of sugar, 60 tons of chocolate, 35 tons of apricot marmalade, 25 tons of butter, and 30 tons of flour to create its famous tortes, which were shipped around the world.

Slipping gratefully beneath the cool sheets of her bed, Darby propped herself up and ate her food. The last bite of rich chocolate with the layer of apricot marmalade below the icing topped off her full stomach. She leaned against her pillow and flipped through channels, watching CNN and the BBC until she could move again. The quiet of the room brought thoughts of Brant. One part wished he could be with her at that very moment; another part believed it could never work. If Brant cared for her at all, why did he so easily let her go? Why did he hold so strongly to his facts on paper when she was in front of him, asking him to take a chance on her? And she didn’t think they had anything in common, except their tendency toward being workaholics. When Darby did know the truth and proved it to Brant, would they be able to put it all behind them? She didn’t think so. The ache inside was not as great as her anger. How could she ever care for a man who would not give her the benefit of the doubt, and over the most important thing in her life?

But before she could address that future, she needed to have the proof. Not only for Brant, but for her original purpose of returning Tatianna’s name.

Darby eased from the bed and found a phone book in the desk. She spread out her papers on Bruno Weiler and searched the directory. She’d never know what the future held or didn’t hold for her until she found the facts. The Ws produced no Weiler at all. Next she skimmed for the aunt under Heike Schumacher. There were many Schumacher names. Suddenly Darby sat up and stared at the name, comparing it to her notes. There it was:
Heike F. Schumacher.

Darby checked her watch. It was already nine o’clock at night, but she dialed the numbers on the telephone anyway. Some things couldn’t wait. Immediately, a young voice answered.

“Hello,” Darby said. “
Sprechen Sie Englisch
?”

“
Ja
. I do,” the woman’s voice said.

“Good. My name is Darby Evans. I’m looking for a woman named Heike Schumacher who had a sister named Dorthe Schumacher Weiler. The woman would be quite old. Have I reached the correct residence?”

“I do not know about sister of Frau Schumacher, but she is very old—one hundred years next month. She is asleep at this time.”

“Are you her daughter?” Darby asked.

“No, I care for Frau Schumacher.”

Darby hesitated. Should she ask now or wait until she could speak directly to the older woman? She took the chance. “I’m actually looking for the nephew of Heike Schumacher. His name is Bruno Weiler. Do you know anything about him?”

The woman hesitated. “I think you should instead speak to Frau Schumacher about such things. I give her your name and telephone and she call you back perhaps?”

“Could you please have her call me? It is very important.” Darby gave the information and the woman said good-bye so quickly Darby wasn’t sure her name and phone number were actually written down.

Darby listened to the dial tone and put the phone down. She may have just ruined her best chance to find Bruno Weiler.

Brant arrived at the home of Peter and Katrine Voss ready to tell them everything. His friend needed to know why Darby’s grandmother could not be Celia Müller and why he had kept the story of what he knew about the Lange inheritance to himself. But as Katrine welcomed him inside, he was first faced with the letters of Darby’s grandmother.

“I am in the middle of translating a new set Darby brought from her grandmother’s house,” Professor Voss said. He handed Brant a pile of papers. As Brant sat at the table and examined them slowly, his entire body turned cold. He gasped when he found one paper with a copy of a ring on it.

“What is this?” he asked, his voice straining to speak.

“It is a diagram of Darby’s ring—or actually the engagement half of her grandmother’s wedding set.”

Brant stared at the photograph. “Peter, we need to find Darby.
Now
.”

Darby woke early to take a shower. She then waited, paced, and stared at the telephone, willing it to ring. Breakfast was room service again. Outside, the day was sunny and almost warm looking. Darby read about the Vienna sights in her
Lonely Planet Guide
, and finally at noon, dialed the number of Heike Schumacher again. No one answered.

By afternoon, she decided she must go out or go crazy. She slid on her jeans and a wool sweater, gathering her hair into a ponytail. She had packed light for what was supposed to be a quick day trip to Hallstatt, and today was her last change of clean socks and underwear. She buttoned her leather jacket and met a cold afternoon despite the sunshine.

Darby found that the Hapsburg Dynasty reign of six hundred years was evident throughout the capital. The beauty of the city displayed what it had once been—a cultural and political giant of an era gone by. Darby wanted to see everything and had enough mapped and planned for a week of sightseeing. But she barely made it through the courtyard of Hofburg, the Imperial palace, after taking a dozen photographs when the nagging wonder of a missed phone call made her decide to return to the Sacher. The wealth of shopping and the magnificence of the sights would have to wait for another day.

She waited for a bus to pass and noticed a gray sedan parked across the street. It seemed like she’d seen that car before, maybe even several times. But there were cars zipping around everywhere, and dozens of gray sedans with tinted windows. Darby continued down the street and glanced back at the license plate. It was an Austrian plate, nothing unusual.

She walked a few more blocks, down tree-lined streets to the turn of the Ringstraße. A gray sedan drove slowly by, the same license plate. When she came upon the car parked a few blocks up, on impulse, she pulled out her camera and began to click the shutter. The car sped away.

Darby suddenly realized that no one knew where she was. She’d told Professor Voss she’d call, but she hadn’t yet. No one knew what hotel she was at, or that she’d made contact with the home of Heike Schumacher. Darby decided to go straight to the hotel.

She let out a sigh when she saw the bright flags waving her to safety a block away. Then a woman with bleached white hair stepped from a doorway in front of her.

“Excuse me,” Darby said, stepping around.

“You seek information, do you not?” the woman said in English.

Darby turned around. The woman leaned against the building with a cigarette held loosely between two long fingers. “Were you speaking to me?”

Darby checked to see if the woman could be talking to someone else. But few pedestrians moved along the street. The woman barely gazed at her as she took a long drag from the cigarette.

“If you want to know the answers you seek, come with me.” The woman walked around her and up the street. Darby didn’t know what to do. Who was she? Where did she come from?

“Darby Evans, are you coming or not?” She waited impatiently.

Darby tried not to look shocked. “How did you know my name?”

The woman smiled, but there was no warmth in the expression. “Trust me.”

Darby edged several steps closer. “What do you want?”

“I want nothing—is it not you who seek answers?” The woman pointed down the alley. The gray sedan sat with the back door open. The engine was running. Through the tinted windshield, she could see a man in the driver’s seat.

Darby took a step back, expecting anything. The woman dropped her cigarette and ground it into the sidewalk.

“Are you going to get in? We won’t force you. But if you want answers, it will take a little cloak-and-dagger, as they say . . . but you will have your answers.”

“How do you know me? Why have you been following me around the city?”

The woman shrugged. “We are only messengers sent to take you where you can find answers. Does the name
Tatianna
mean anything to you?”

“What do you know about Tatianna?”

“I know nothing. But I know who does. But you must choose to come.”

Darby paused to consider the choice, her mind turning a million images. Her grandmother in her coffin, Professor Voss, Brant’s face the night of the Mozart concert, her mother as Darby promised to be careful. But her need to know what had happened overthrew any mental warnings. Darby quickly stepped to the side of the car where the open door invited her into the dark interior. The woman opened the passenger door and sat in the front seat.

Darby leaned inside. “I need to tell someone where I am going.”

“Get in or go your own way,” the woman said, barely looking over her shoulder. The man didn’t turn at all. “You have but one opportunity.”

Darby sat on the leather seat. As soon as she closed the door, the sedan sped forward down Kärtnerstraße. She had been one block from her hotel. As they passed the waving flags of Hotel Sacher, Darby knew she’d made a terrible mistake.