God knows, Felix thought as the Major rolled out every platitude available, Edelbacher was a trier. But he just didn’t get it. He probably considered himself a gently persistent and undemanding suitor, well versed in the needs of a working woman of a certain age.

A modern no, a contemporary woman, he’d say. Their mother, however, had been hinting more and more to Edelbacher that he had a misplaced sympathy for her. There were moments when Felix felt almost sorry for Edelbacher. He’d never understand that Greti Kimmel didn’t want to be protected, or taken care of, or that she would not remarry. She did not want to let him down hard, but neither could she get through to him.

Had some part of Edelbacher’s brain picked up on this, and this only magnified her attractiveness even more? Or was it, as Opa Nagl had muttered, that he simply saw a woman not yet 50, a fine woman with a paid-up house, an insurance windfall, a good pension, and a job? Smitten, huh? How about a gold digger? There was nothing funny about it at all. In his cynical moments, Felix had thought it might make a good reality TV show, like the Lugners and their idiotic lives.

But like the church door ahead of him, and this day itself, here he was, in front of Felix, this gormless bachelor, as sincere as he was possibly calculating too, but also a superior officer. Felix tried to look alert.

“Thank you, Major,” he said.

For which observance, Felix received Edelbacher’s signature greeting, a sizeable knuckle on his upper arm.

Then he leaned forward toward Lisi again.

“Dad would be proud of his boy today, right, Lisi?”