The Butterfly and the Violin (36 page)

The God-worship of every life—this was the art of Auschwitz.

The image of the painting was burned on her heart. This was Omara’s legacy. This was the tribute to those who had lived and endured and died all around her . . . Adele could imagine Omara’s hands, aged and knotted fingers moving with care over the makeshift canvas in the hidden stairwell, painting the image with as much pride as any artist in a modern studio. It was her art and here it would be lost.

Adele wiped at the tears that had pooled in the sunken skin around her eyes.

Would she play or should she refuse? Would she take a bullet in the head?

The young violinist in the painting looked back at her.

She looked pure, perhaps as Austria’s Sweetheart had looked all those months ago when she’d first stepped off the train platform and into her new shadow of a life. But in looking at the shaved head, the sad eyes, and the hollow expression in the painting, it became clear; there was but one thing to do.

Adele rose up from the floor. And before she could talk herself out of it, she picked up the dress and shoes and walked out to the warehouse to retrieve a pair of scissors.

A general gasp permeated the crowd when Adele appeared on the concert hall stage.

She saw the sea of faces, some confused, others exclaiming at how the Germans could have allowed Austria’s Sweetheart to
have been shorn of her crowning glory. She heard their whispers, likely appalled by the loss of her dignity before such an auditorium of distinguished guests.

It was surreal, walking out before an audience of the Nazis’ elite for the second time. And knowing what she must have looked like to them, with her trademark blond locks gone and her crown shaved smooth in replacement, face without powder or rouge, her skin translucent and pale as death. It was no wonder that the quiet murmurs sent a wave of shock to blanket the concert hall. She knew how she must look. Still, Adele kept her chin up as she stood tall before them, resolute and without shame now that her decision had been made.

No one had thought to check on her prior to the performance.

Why would they? None of the guards ever had. The musicians had always been too terrified to do anything the least bit out of place. But not this time. Adele knew it was reckless but she didn’t care. The feeling of taking scissors to her hair and shaving her head smooth had been freeing—she’d never imagined shedding that old part of her would minister to her soul. She fully expected to receive a death sentence because of it.

It didn’t matter now. She’d already decided that regardless of her fate, this would be her last performance.

All she could do was think about God and how she would honor Him with her gift. For the first time in her life Adele felt beautiful in her weakness, a perfect creation with the shorn locks, feeling God’s strength uplifting her from all sides. She was one of them now, the Jews and the other lost ones. Now that her former life had all but faded away, the prisoner population had become fused to her core. Her heart was with those who had died in Auschwitz and she would never, ever be the same person again.

Live or die—the outcome no longer mattered. Adele knew she would never leave Auschwitz.

In the echoing silence of the concert hall, she raised her bow
and tucked the violin up under her chin. With her heart free and the scars on her palms burning to give the performance of her life, she waited for the crowd to quiet and the conductor to proceed, though he too appeared shaken. He looked to someone offstage, lifted his eyebrows in question, then turned to the orchestra with a look of subdued fear on his face.

He called them to attention.

And just as she’d always done, Adele breathed out deeply. She set her back poker straight. Her arms were fluid and ready to be used with proficiency. She looked at the crowd, the same sea of faces greeting her as a stranger, and tried to instead imagine Omara in the front row. She pictured the mothers who had walked the lonely path with their children, remembered the elderly who followed with bent backs and tired steps toward the gas chambers. She pictured everyone who’d been lost, urging her on, telling her it was okay to finally let go . . . that the Butterfly could dance with just one more song of praise lifted upward from her violin.

The rest of the orchestra sat at attention with her.

Adele was ready to play with every fiber of her being. Instinctively, like so many mornings at the camp gates or during the horrendous selections at the train platform, she looked up. Her eyes went to the second chair in the back row, just as they always had.

And in that perfect moment, all time stopped along with her heart.

Vladimir
.

A breath of disbelief escaped her lips. Her fingers trembled and her feet twitched with their need to run to his side.

Is it really you?

She blinked once. Twice. No, her eyes weren’t playing tricks.

His head was shaved. And he’d been beaten at some point, for a scar marred his forehead along his hairline and the telltale
shade of purple darkened his left cheekbone. Appearing frail with a washed-out face, her love sat, quite alive but dreadful in appearance, on the same stage as she. Beaming at her with the same heart-stopping smile she’d dared not hope to ever see again.

Yes, it’s me.
She could almost hear his heart whispering to her.
I’m still here, Adele.

Her Vladimir looked back with joyful tears freely dampening the eyes that blinked three times just for her. They couldn’t talk. Couldn’t touch. Couldn’t do anything but know that they were onstage together. And whether they’d have a future together in this life or not, this one moment of worship they’d give back to God. They’d do so gratefully—together.

They had the past—it was all she’d been able to think on in the years she’d been in Auschwitz. And while they may not be gifted with a future, Adele was overcome by the present, the moment she’d always prayed would come. In that instant, she thanked God for second chances. He’d heard her prayers and had gifted her a last good-bye.

She blinked back. Quickly. Three times. And Vladimir nodded, ever so slightly, keeping his eyes fixed on her.

It was fitting somehow that she played Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor, for it was one of the unique concertos to begin with the violin solo. The song called her to attention and she gave herself up to it. Longing for peace. Searching for God in such a soulless place. She played the crying melody with eyes closed and arms that moved swift as the wind through Birkenau’s birch forest, her heart soaring in worship as the notes were carried from her heart to the strings on her violin, and echoed behind her by the orchestra.

And she felt the beauty in the music now, drank it in with tears streaming down her face. Never had she been so naked in worship before her Creator, allowing the adoration to bleed out her very fingertips onto the strings, playing her heart’s cry for
every single lost soul, for the loss of innocence every generation to come would possess as a result of what happened at the killing fields of Auschwitz.

Her final performance would be to honor God with every last breath in her body. And they played, she and Vladimir together, as if their symphony of thanks had been heard, for God allowed them to meet one more time.

Her body and mind floated through the fast-slow-fast pace of the concerto, the movements pacing first with the gentle notes of an ordered tranquility until they cascaded to a powerful, triumphant ending with all instruments awakened and orchestra strings blazing in unison.

The applause startled her, for Adele hardly knew when the notes had ended.

She’d been playing, crying, soul lost and heart soaring, and time had stopped, though she played for nearly thirty minutes. The moment the piece had ended, she dropped her arms and cradled the violin, head bowed. And they cheered. Whatever shock had been registered by her appearance was gone once she’d played so masterfully before the masses in the concert hall.

Abba . . .

Adele mouthed the words as the auditorium full of Nazis came to their feet and cheered.

Do You see, Abba? Do You see? It’s not all evil, is it? There is beauty
here too . . .

Beauty.

Awe-inspiring, sacrificial, and breathtaking beauty. Adele had been gifted this in what she believed was to be her last goodbye to life on earth.

CHAPTER THIRTY

S
era arrived in Paris just as the sun was ducking down behind the great steel arches of the Eiffel Tower. The structure created a bronzed pillar on the skyline, stretching up to yawn through the low-hanging rain clouds as the curtain of evening fell around the taxicab windows. City lights dotted the sky beyond the streets, like fireflies dancing in between the raindrops that misted the glass.

The taxi driver turned corners too tightly, tossing Sera about the backseat as they traversed rain-slicked streets through the heart of the city.

“Nombre 58, Rue de la Concorde.”

Sera felt the car slide to a stop, its brakes squeaking slightly. But it was the words William had spoken that echoed in her ears. She’d never find peace in her life without fully surrendering to God. Not if she found the painting. Not even if she learned what had happened to Adele and Vladimir. The answer she longed to find would mean little if she refused to yield to God’s love in her own life.

Is William right? Have I learned nothing?

The thoughts tossed about the inside of her head almost as haphazardly as she’d been pitched about in the back of the taxi. She looked to the city lights beyond the window, feeling guilty that she’d ventured to Paris without having patched things up with William.

“Mademoiselle?”

“Yes?” She snapped her head up to look at the driver.

“
Voici
.
Nombre
58,” he said, and pointed to the awning-covered door of a white-brick, multilevel apartment building. Hanging flower baskets moved with the ebb and flow of the wind, casting ghostly shadows across the front steps. “Would you like me to wait, mademoiselle?”

“No.” She shook her head and handed him enough euros to cover the trip.
“Merci.”

The truth of what had happened to Adele and Vladimir was before her. There was nothing to do but climb the stairs to the woman’s apartment.

William was right. She was poised to find the missing piece in the puzzle, but it didn’t feel like she’d thought it would. The chase of the painting had captured her so that she couldn’t see past it.

What came next? No matter the outcome, it wouldn’t change the fate of a couple who had lived and loved more than seventy years before.

Sera ducked her head under the roof of the car and stepped out in the rain.

Without William, it wouldn’t change her future either.

The door creaked open, and in the glow of lamplight that spilled out into the fifth-floor hallway, an elegantly dressed woman stood with a crocheted afghan draped over her shoulders. Her smile was soft and her features bordered by hair of a color so silver it reflected almost violet in the dim light. She stood with a frame of barely five feet in height, hands clasped in front of her in a demure manner, as if she’d expected a visitor in the midst of the rainstorm.