Staff Nurse in the Tyrol by Elizabeth Houghton Read Free Book Online

return then?”
    “Is it as likely that we win back the Sud Tirol from Italy.”
    “I don’t understand. I thought the Tirol belonged to Austria.” Sonia was puzzled.
    “Sh-sh! It is not wise that we talk about it. It is not popular, the subject. It happened long ago. Only the old people remember and the young ones use it as a slogan, not knowing what it really means. Once Austria was a great country. Now it is carved up into many pieces. So many of the people have been killed or scattered to the ends of the world. All that is left is like a child’s broken toy. The Tirol was so proud, so illustrious, and it too has been smashed by the wars we did not want. The Sud Tirol ... ” her voice instinctively dropped “. .. was given away to Italy. The names of our towns were changed. The mapmakers condescend to put the Austrian names below the Italian ones, but ours are in the smallest of print.” She picked up her glass. “Finish your coffee if you come with me. It is time that I sing to the small ones and tell stories.”
    Sonia hesitated. “I think I will stay here. Why do you love the children so much?”
    Greta seemed startled, but her face softened. “How did you know? I do not tell you.”
    Sonia put a hand shyly on the other’s arm. “It’s in your voice, perhaps.”
    Greta laughed, but there was bitterness in the sound. “Always I love the children, but for myself I must not let it interfere with my plans. It is so—so important that I get away from here. Stefan says stay, but that is madness. He says he loves me, b u t that is a lie. He loves only his country. If the word came he would leave me like a ... a thief in the night ... and where would I be? Holding his children without a doubt, and I would hear them crying with hunger like the little ones who come to our wards. No! I will not listen to those voices soft with love. It is only a treachery to spoil my plans. In America it would be different. There would be the money, the security, the happiness, and the children are not hungry.” She stood up abruptly. “I must go.”
    “What about Michael?” Sonia heard her words with horror.
    Greta’s face dissolved into impersonal blankness. “He is the greatest danger of them all.” She spoke as if to herself. “He does not care about me or about anyone. Yet if he lifts his little finger I cannot help myself. It is ... how do you say it ... hell.” She seemed to waken suddenly. “But what am I saying?” Her eyes pleaded with Sonia. “Do me a favor. Never mention it, not even when we are alone. Promise!”
    “I promise,” Sonia said gently.
    She sat on in the dim coolness of the cafe sipping her iced coffee, hearing the soft quick sound of the Austrian speech from the other tables, and always the laughter running like quicksilver. Did it have the brittleness of ice on the pools in the first frost of winter or was that only her imagination? The distant sounds of a church clock striking made her realize that she had been sitting there a longtime. She stood up stiffly and began to walk toward the door.
    The little waitress passed her with a tray full of glasses. “Auf Wiedersehen ,” she smiled.
    Sonia smiled back as she answered shyly. “Auf Wiedersehen. ”
    It was as if the words were a passport to her new life and a seal of approval that she was being accepted in this strange land where it always seemed today, tomorrow was only mentioned in timid whispers, and yesterday was accorded the bitterness of a funeral.
    She walked slowly back up the hospital drive. The buildings were ablaze with lights; here and there was a patch of darkness that could be a side ward where the desperately ill fought to retain a grip on life, or one of the laboratories where the research workers had laid down their tools until another day gave them strength to push back the frontiers of science yet another fraction. The fierce heat that had seemed to press like a smothering blanket against her earlier had given way to a