Munich Signature Read Online Free Page A

to hear Otto’s tearful farewell.
    Strange man. Brave man, to return to Vienna when he might have stayed here .
    Someday perhaps she would be able to thank him properly. Then in a stab of painful memory it came to her that he was returning to Vienna with the name of Shimon Feldstein seared in his mind. Would he find Shimon? Would he be able to help him?
    Such thoughts and questions robbed Leah of the peace she had felt only moments before. She sat up and frowned toward the shuttered window. Outside she could hear the sound of horses stamping impatiently at a rail. The jangle of bits and bridles mingled with urgent voices.
    “We can take them as far as Gustav Stroh’s hut on horseback.”
    “Small groups—two, maybe three at a time. Gustav can guide them over the Zillertal, and young Henri can take them to Father Prato in Italy.”
    “Otto says we must hurry. We have days at best before they are back in force.” Leah recognized the voice of Frau Marta. There was no hint of dread or grief in the farmwife’s voice. This morning she seemed fully in charge of her emotions as though she had not been forced to bid her eldest son farewell.
    Leah wrapped a quilt around her shoulders and stepped onto the cold floor. She tiptoed close to the window and held her breath as she listened to them discussing the escape of their fugitive guests.
    “And the woman Otto brought last night?” a male voice said.
    Leah peeked through a crack in the shutter. This strong, red-bearded young man was Franz, the one who had fallen in love with Elisa when she had stayed at the farmhouse with her family.
    “Poor dear,” Marta said. “I put her in the garret room. Let her sleep through breakfast. She is a dear friend of our Elisa, Franz.”
    Franz placed a saddle squarely on the back of a mare whose red hide matched his beard. “That may be, Mama, but I think we should take each group out in the order they came to us. Ja , Papa?”
    “Leah is her name. She looks as if she could use the rest. Pale as a glacier. No sunlight for weeks. All shut up in a little flat in Vienna, Otto told us.”
    Leah stared up at the timbers. She was not at all unhappy about being last on the list to leave this place. Perhaps Otto would somehow find Shimon while they waited here. Then they could leave Austria together over the Zillertal. They would be together in Italy and in Switzerland and then, perhaps, Jerusalem? This would be the best place, the closest place to wait for Shimon to join her. She exhaled loudly; in her excitement she had lost the flow of the conversation taking place beneath her window.
    Three children stood tearfully in a half circle around Frau Marta. The oldest was a boy of eleven or twelve who raised his chin manfully and bit his lip to control his tears. Two little girls wept openly as Frau Marta daubed their tears with her apron and smoothed their long braids.
    “There, now, no need for tears. When this is all over, as it surely must be soon, you will come back and stay for as long as you like and help Papa Karl milk Gerta and Zillie.”
    “We will miss you,” sniffled the smaller of the two girls. “Who will sing to us and pray with us at night?”
    Marta pulled the child close. “Everywhere there are those who love to sing with children and pray with them, too. In Italy you will be with a priest for a while; such prayers you will hear!”
    “Can he bake good roggenbrot?”
    “You have become an admirer of Tyrolean rye bread, eh?” Marta paused dramatically. “No one bakes it as I do.” She clucked her tongue. “But I have sent fresh loaves in your packs.”
“Mama”—Franz held the horses by their reins—“we have to go. Come, children. We have a long journey. Come, we must hurry.”
    Wrapped in her quilt, Leah watched the sad children mount their horses and follow Franz into the woods. Their heads were turned to stare back longingly at the farmhouse until they could no longer see it.
    When they were out of sight, Leah