Then the mechanic got back on his bike and rode away.
My mother and I were surprised to hear there wasn’t anyone at the Danner farm. But it didn’t bother us. A little later I was thinking no more about it. I’d forgotten it entirely.
About an hour after the mechanic came by, young Hansl Hauer showed up. I was still in the garden with my mother. Hansl was waving his arms in the air. Waving them around like crazy. He was all worked up. Long before he got to us he was shouting, asking if Father was at home, saying something had happened at the Danner place.
At that very moment Father came out of the front door. He’d seen Hansl through the window.
Hansl still hadn’t reached us when he started shouting again. His dad had sent him, he said, because there was something wrong up at the Danners’.
“Herr Sterzer, he wants you to go up to Tannöd and the farm too,” he told my father.
At Hauer’s, they didn’t want to go poking around there on their own. None of them had seen the Danners since Saturday, he said. Even on Sunday there wasn’t a single one of the Danner family at church.
Then I remembered what the mechanic said, how he, too, had told us there wasn’t anyone at home at the Danner farm.
Hansl told us his aunt had sent him up to the Danners’ place. To look around, because no one at the Hauer farm had seen any of them for the last few days.
The cattle were mooing in the farmyard, he said, and the dog was whining frantically. Hansl shook the front door of the house, but it was locked. He shook it really hard; he knocked, too, and called to Barbara and Marianne. And when no one answered, and all of a sudden he didn’t like the way it felt up there at the farm, he went back to his dad.
He told him all about it, and his dad sent him over to us, for one of us to go up to the farm with him. So now Hansl was here with Father and Alois; they were to go straight up to Tannöd with him, and Hauer would be waiting for them there.
Father left right away with Lois. Up to the Danner farm. They took Hansl with them.
And that’s where they found them. All of them.
By Thy willing obedience,
deliver them, O Lord!
By the endless love of Thy divine heart,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy anguish and Thy labor,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy blood and sweat,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy captivity,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy cruel scourging,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy shameful crown of thorns,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy toil and labor in carrying the Cross,
deliver them, O Lord!
By the precious blood of Thy wounds,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy bitter Cross and Passion,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy death and burial,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy holy Resurrection,
deliver them, O Lord!
By Thy miraculous Ascension,
deliver them, O Lord!
By the coming of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter,
deliver them, O Lord!
On the Day of Judgment
deliver them, O Lord!
Miserable sinners that we are,
we beg You, hear our prayer!
Thou who forgavest the sinner Mary Magdalene,
we beg You, hear our prayer!
Michael Baumgartner trudges toward the Tannöd farm through the sleet. The wind is blowing into his face. He knows the way, he knows the property. Otherwise it would have been tricky, finding the farm in the middle of the night, in this weather. He’s worked there quite often over the years. In the woods in spring, in the fields in summer. Always plenty of work going on the Danner farm.
Mick, as he’s generally known, doesn’t like working too long on any one farm. He moves from place to place, “always on the road,” as he says. Sometimes he sleeps in a barn, sometimes in a loft.
He makes his living, or so everyone thinks, from casual labor. Now and then he’s been on the roads as a peddler, too.
In fact, however, he lives mainly by theft, breaking and entering, taking his chance to commit minor criminal offenses.
He takes a good look around the farms where he works. By the time he moves on again, he usually knows plenty about them. What’s to be had where and who from. Mick can use this trick to manipulate people. He has a natural talent, “a bent for it” is the way he puts it.
He’ll work at a farm for a time. He works hard, too, that’s how to win the trust of the farming folk. Flatters them, says how well a man “keeps his place going,” tells him “what a fine farm this is,” cracks a joke or two with a twinkle in his eye, and the proud owner of the farm will start bragging. Even if he’s usually buttoned up, perhaps most of all if he’s usually buttoned up. Mick keeps his ears and eyes open, and after a while he goes on his way. He passes on what he knows about the farms and their owners, or if a good opportunity arises, he may seize it himself. Whatever suits him best.
If you go about it cleverly, if you’re not too greedy and you can bide your time, you can usually get by pretty well. You don’t want to let yourself get caught, but only the greedy, the careless, and those who go too far are caught.
Mick’s not greedy, it’s not in his nature, and he has all the time in the world.
And his brother-in-law disposes of the stolen goods. His sister and her husband have a little farm in Unterwald, ideally situated. Out of the way, difficult to spot.
His brother-in-law did very well out of the black market just after the war. With the currency reform on June 20, 1948, that kind of trade died a natural death.
But during his time as a black marketeer, the brother-in-law managed to build up good contacts. A little ring of receivers, traders, and petty criminals got together.
Now their functions are distinct. Mick goes from farm to farm, picking up information. When the right time comes, he, his brother-in-law, or one of his brother-in-law’s old friends will break into the place. Steal money, clothes, jewelry, food, anything that can be turned into cash. No one ever thinks of connecting him, Mick, with the burglary. It’s too long since he let whatever farmer is the victim set eyes on him.
If it gets too hot for him in one place, he moves on to another. Or he takes a break. Shifts his business interests into other areas.
Working as a peddler was a good one.
His brother-in-law was on the road as a peddler before and even during the war years. Used to sell the country people all kinds of stuff: shoelaces, hair lotion, real coffee before the war, ersatz coffee in wartime. All manner of other bits and pieces. A leg injury kept him out of the forces. “Old Adolf needed men, not cripples. He could make cripples of them himself,” he always used to say, laughing and clapping his thigh.