Free The Salzburg Connection by Helen MacInnes Page B

reckoning, a very big man indeed. Hadn’t he, a city boy born and bred, made his way to the mountains when he was only fourteen? The Germans weren’t going to make a stiff-backed Nazi out of him as they had done with Josef, his older brother—killed in Poland, which was one way of settling Josef’s savage political arguments with their father. (Come to think of it, it was his father who had turned Josef into a Nazi before the Germans even arrived.) And his father wasn’t going to convert him into being a fellow Communist—Marxist was his way of describing himself; Father had always liked the intellectual touch—and sharing the martyrdom of a Nazi concentration camp. Yet the old man was tough. He had survived.
    Yes, he had survived to come home after that great night of liberation and find what his comrades had done to his wife and daughter. He solved that problem even more quickly than he used to solve all the problems of the world: he hanged himself from an exposed and blackened beam in the ruins of his house. As for Mother...
    Johann drew a deep long breath. Yes, that was all his mother had needed to push her out of this world. She retreated; first mentally, then physically. The day after she died, Anna made her way out of the Russian zone. A fifteen-year-old girl with a three-months-old baby in her hands. On foot. With only the clothes they wore. He had tried to imagine that journey, and couldn’t. Wouldn’t. That was more honest. The past was past... He was thinking too much about it, today. Perhaps becauseAnna had been thinking about it. Had she sat all through last night remembering?
    He rose abruptly, went through to the shop. Here everything was neat and businesslike. He admired the display of cameras, the expensive gadgets that tourists like to drape around their necks, and the photographs on the wall that were Dick’s real interest. Mountains, glaciers, forests and meadowlands, lakes (yes, Finstersee was there among them) and alpine villages with their half-timbered houses, wooden walls rising from white plaster, balconies set into alcoves under deep eaves. There was a picture of Unterwald, too, with the Gasthof Waldesruh standing peacefully against its background of trees. Suddenly, Johann frowned. He hesitated. Then, obeying his instinct, he moved quickly to the telephone. He hoped Felix Zauner wouldn’t still be reading a newspaper over his cup of mid-morning coffee at Tomaselli’s. But Felix was in his office above the Getreidegasse.
    “And where are you sneezing from?” Felix wanted to know.
    “I’m in Salzburg, staying with Anna and Dick. Look, Felix—what do you know about the Grells, August and Anton Grell? They keep the inn at Unterwald.”
    “Pleasant enough. Efficient. The old boy is pretty conservative, though. I couldn’t interest him at all in turning his place into a real ski lodge. I have an idea for a ski lift up from the valley, but so far he says it would only ruin Unterwald.” Felix laughed. “It’s the first time I’ve ever heard a little more prosperity spread among the villages being called their ruin.”
    Johann wiped his nose, repressed another sneeze. The shop was cold.
    “Why do you ask?”
    “I don’t know,” Johann said slowly. He hadn’t any real reason, only a small worry that had started out as a simple question. He frowned again at the picture of the Gasthof Waldesruh. “It’s just that Dick went up to Finstersee early this morning—”
    “Oh?” Felix’s quiet voice was now serious.
    “And he telephoned Anna from the inn. He was having breakfast there.”
    “Why not?”
    “The inn is closed at the moment. At least, it looked very closed when I was up visiting Unterwald two weeks ago.”
    “I didn’t think you noticed anything when you were with Trudi.” Felix might be making a mild joke about Johann’s girl-in-every-village, but his next words went right to the heart of Johann’s question. “So they invited him in for a hot cup of coffee. Why