He took a deep breath and looked over the valley below. Some of the early-morning haze still clung to the deeper valleys far off. It was probably a 50-kilometre view he had to the south. How come he didn’t know exactly, and he a native son? And there were more still behind that light, faded horizon. Das grune Herz von Oesterreich: The Green Heart of Austria.

Something moved around in his guts again. He should try to walk off a bit before going in the churchyard gates. Down by the war memorials with their ever fresh bouquets and meticulous plantings, where there always seemed to be at least one candle lit, his child’s eyes had run along the names, the families of the soldiers, ever since he could remember.

Could he? Yes: Seiser family, six men, or boys, in two wars. Oberhummers, five, two in WWI. The Seidls, his father’s neighbours when he was growing up, were next. They had two sons killed. One had not returned from the Eastern Front. He tried to figure out how old one would be were he alive today.

“Come on,” Lisi called out.

He let his gaze run up the road, saw the beginning of the track where Maier had nearly mired his truck. The put-put of a tractor brought him back. Coming down the laneway toward him was a Kubota, driven by an old man. The face was ruddy, nearly leather, and the battered-looking traditional green jacket, the lodenjanker.

“Gruss Gott!”

“Servus,” Felix called after him. In from the high meadows near the village, he guessed.

Lisi held out peppermints.

“Believe me,” she said. “You need these. Take a lot.”

His heart suddenly ached.

“You’re bothered,” she said. “That’s why you were out last night. I know.”