The Lost Prince (46 page)

“You are suggesting that this war trauma is Arnauld’s fate?”

“That is the only answer, the only way he could be vanished now, unable to identify himself, and yet emerge intact. Unless he were taken prisoner by the Russians and removed deep into their homeland.” He paused. “In such case he would never be seen again, and therefore this is not a possibility.” The great doctor had obviously thought it all through. “Were shell shock the case, as it obviously is, we would indeed know at least generally where to find him.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “So I could use your help.”

The doctor looked as if he might have reconsidered his cooperation, but then he moved forward. “He has sustained no permanent physical damage. His limbs are intact. He has sustained no permanent brain injury and has a damaged but still recoverable mind. He has not been taken into the heart of some vast enemy land where there is much bitterness and secrecy. He was on the Italian front, where the fighting was continual and relentless in its horror.”

“I know this,” Eleanor said, just a bit impatient.

“Very few would return untouched, in one way or another, from that fate. For a sensitive man such as Herr Esterhazy it would have been especially traumatic. So,” he said, the fingers of each hand meeting the other in front of his chest, “that means only one thing.”

She waited expectantly. “That is why I am here, Herr Doctor,” she said, “to hear of that one
thing
.”

“There is only one possibility. One place you will find him. The war has
taken a horrible toll in human life, and throughout Europe there are thousands of unidentifiable souls, physically alive but so spiritually dead that no one knows their identities. It will take years to identify them all. If Herr Esterhazy is alive, my guess is that he is among those lost souls. But not
permanently,
according to your beliefs.”

She nodded her agreement. “Yes,” she said.

“If he were to be alive, you would find your Arnauld Esterhazy in one of the many hospitals, both makeshift and formal, filled with the many hopeless victims of the war, caught up in the chaos and confusion of huge numbers. He will have no way of identifying himself or anyone looking for him, or else he would have done so. Lost in the confusion of war. There are no records to help these victims or their loved ones. One hears terrible stories on both sides, of such severe psychological shock that the young men are rendered totally incapacitated. Unimaginable devastation.” The doctor shook his head. “We in our profession only wish we could be of more help.”

The great doctor paused to see that Eleanor was following. “I understand,” she said.

“Do not forget that he might be with the Czechs or the Romanians or the Germans, or even the Italians,” he said. “The numbers are overwhelming. The task is too much.”

“I am up to the task,” Eleanor said, the vehemence returned to her eyes.

Dr. Freud looked into those eyes. “I do not underestimate you, Frau Burden. It will be a very disturbing journey, your descent into the underworld.”

“To retrieve my Orpheus.”

“Eurydice searching for Orpheus,” he said, “a reversal of roles.” Dr. Freud, the nonbeliever, reached for a desk drawer and withdrew an envelope. “I have done some research. These are the hospitals where you can begin, a few nearby, but most in the war zone west of Trieste.” He reached across his desk with the list, which Eleanor took.

“You can begin here in Vienna, at the huge Vienna state hospital, Allgemeines Krankenhaus, but that is filled mostly with soldiers from the Russian front. Then you will have to travel to our territories north of Italy, near Trieste, to the infamous Isonzo River front. There is one collection place in Gorizia, a requisitioned palazzo, a forgotten place of lost souls, it
appears. That seems to be the best possibility. You will look there first,” he said. “But if not Gorizia, there are others, all listed here. All the way over to the new front on the Piave River north of Venice, where it all came to a close, and the chaos where the Italians have taken hundreds of thousands of prisoners.”

She held the list for a long moment, reflecting on all the great doctor had said. “Thank you,” she said in little more than a whisper. “You have obviously done a great deal of research on my behalf.” She neglected to add,
and in a cause in which you do not believe
.

“There is no need for gratitude,” Dr. Freud said with genuine concern. “In this instance, I hope that you are right and I am wrong. And I wish you the speed of the gods.”

THE FIRST HOSPITAL

S
igmund Freud’s list of hospital sites for the wounded would eventually take Eleanor and her new partner Franz Jodl to the vicinity of Trieste, at the southernmost edge of the empire, on the Adriatic. “But be prepared for uncertainties,” the doctor had warned as she was leaving Berggasse 19. “Both sides have been quite overwhelmed by the management of casualties. There are many makeshift hospitals, some now closed, some in great disarray. Yours will not be an easy search.”

Their first visit had been to the large hospital of Vienna, where soldiers had been delivered from the very first disastrous days on the eastern front against the Russian guns, in Galicia. But Freud had not been hopeful about that visit. “Most of the patients here in Vienna have names and are accounted for.” And, of course, Arnauld, were he alive, would not be among them. “There are many damaged souls among the wounded here, and in the mental wards, but I doubt he would be one of those. Your Esterhazy would have been lost in the chaos of the Italian war zone.”

Their letter of introduction from Sigmund Freud worked well at the huge Allgemeines Krankenhaus. They were greeted by a serious-looking doctor who resembled a younger, taller version of Freud himself, and he introduced them to a nurse, an officious but kindly woman with a neatly starched uniform and thick spectacles.

“I will give you a general tour,” she said, “and then we will visit the
ward of the unidentified patients, where you may find the man you search for.”

She explained that, during the days of battle, wounded soldiers were taken first to field hospitals, then, as soon as they were stabilized, moved by train to the larger city hospitals throughout the empire, Prague, Budapest, Romania, preferably near their homes. But many of the soldiers ended up here, displaced and far from home. The schedule of family visits from all over the provinces alone was staggering. After each large battle, first in Galicia, then in Serbia, France, and finally Italy, there were tens of thousands of casualties, each requiring special attention.

“We will have to be diligent and thorough, I know,” Eleanor said. “We must leave no stone unturned, no patient unvisited.”

“I am sorry that you need to see this,” her new partner said, having not yet learned that he did not need to protect her. “I wish there were another way.”

“Be prepared,” Freud had warned her. “The Vienna hospital is clean and tidy but shocking all the same. Where you are going the conditions will be unnerving. You will be descending into the awful world of war.”

Even after the armistice, the flow continued, every week new patients coming in by train.

“One can only imagine the chaos out in the provinces where the battles take place.”

The visitors were ushered through rows of beds, observing patients in all manner of condition, some prostrate, unable to move, some up against the headboards reading, some sitting on the edges of beds, some walking slowly in the aisles, supported by nurses or orderlies. “All of these have an identity,” the nurse said. “All of these have families they are writing to.”

In the next room patients were recovering from operations. Many of them had survived amputations, and most of them were heavily bandaged. “You can imagine the need for medical supplies. Fortunately, in this hospital, we have what we need. And we are well staffed. In the provinces, they are not so lucky, we hear.”

Before entering the room at the end of one wing, the nurse stopped them. “This is the difficult one,” she said, “even for those of us who have seen much. Many of these poor souls are alive in fact only.”

They entered and walked silently between beds. What they saw defied
description, bodies torn apart and sewed back together, some bandaged, some not, some soldiers not able to identify their names or where they came from. “War is hell,” the nurse said to them, “and this is the proof.”

“Arnauld would not be among these,” Eleanor whispered to her companion.

“And how do you know this?” he asked.

“Arnauld will be returning to normal life without physical scars,” she said with conviction. “We must travel to the war zone.”

As they passed beside the bed of one young soldier, he sat up suddenly and stared directly at Eleanor. “Ernestine,” he said loudly, and reached out his hand, as if across a vast expanse. There was a haunting fierceness in his eyes. Eleanor stepped forward and took the hand. “Ernestine,” he repeated, and a nurse, hearing his expostulation, stepped up to intercede.

“It is all right,” Eleanor said, holding tight to the hand. In a moment, the fierceness began fading from the young man’s eyes. “Ernestine, you have come,” he said, searching Eleanor’s face for some missing element of connection.

“It is all right,” Eleanor repeated, this time directly into the face of the young man, and as she released his hand, he fell back in his bed, now staring at the ceiling. Eleanor and Jodl moved on without words. The nurse stepped toward the bed and helped the young man close his eyes.

They passed one bed where a man lay motionless; he seemed to have no arms. Later they passed men whose heads were totally bandaged. “I believe these have no faces,” Jodl whispered.

By the time they finished their tour of the military wings of the Allgemeines Krankenhaus, Eleanor admitted to Jodl her fatigue.

“It is overwhelming, is it not?” the nurse said to them as it was clear their lengthy tour was completed. “And it remains so for us who have been here for the duration. Elsewhere,” she added, “we hear that the numbers are less intimidating, but the conditions appalling.”

“I know,” she said. “We shall prepare ourselves.”

“You have before you a daunting task, Frau Burden,” the doctor said as they parted. “I wish you luck.”

“We will press on,” she said.

“There is one thing you must know,” the doctor said. “There is a great deal of hope within the hopelessness of your mission. There are literally
thousands of unidentified and unaccounted-for soldiers in the aftermath of this horrible war. The odds are on your side.”

“Thank you,” Eleanor said. “Hope in hopelessness,” she repeated.

Eleanor and Jodl were silent on their taxi ride back to Fräulein Tatlock’s. “One must not be disappointed,” Eleanor said in parting. “It was not reasonable to expect to find him so easily. There will be more of this.”

“Very Much Among the Living”

T
he next task was the visit she was both anticipating and dreading, to Arnauld’s parents. The family home was a hillside property some thirty kilometers from the heart of Vienna. From Arnauld’s descriptions over the years, Eleanor could visualize it before her actual visit with her young son. As she rode up the long gravel entryway in the motorcar that had been sent for her, the landscape felt familiar. The small vineyard had belonged to the Esterhazy family for generations. “The plot of land has produced for generations some of the best wines in all of Europe,” Arnauld used to say, “but no one has tasted them save the Esterhazys and half of Franz Joseph’s fabled aristocracy and their fortunate guests.” And she knew from the last letters before their abrupt cessation that with the dissolution of the empire the small acreage was now given directly to Arnauld’s father, to do with what he could, to share its produce with the world.

“My father is an excellent winemaker,” Arnauld would say, “as was his father.” And Arnauld would describe accompanying his father in the morning inspections of the rows of vines and the supervision of the harvests in early fall. “There was a seasonal rhythm of my parents’ life that always seemed orderly and peaceful.”

Arnauld’s parents were elderly and genteel, as she knew they would be. They welcomed her and her son with great warmth and humility, treating young Standish with affectionate attention from the start. Frau Esterhazy
mentioned immediately that Herr Esterhazy’s cousin, recovering from war wounds, was staying with them and would be joining them later.

“Are you enjoying your visit to Vienna?” Frau Esterhazy asked.

“I certainly am,” Standish said with an assertive authority that brought from both of his hosts an affectionate laugh.

“There is much for a boy to enjoy in our city,” Arnauld’s father said.

“Mother and I liked the Bible story windows very much,” the boy said, again with authority.

“We spent some time in St. Stephen’s,” Eleanor explained.

“That is a beautiful place,” Frau Esterhazy said, which brought a nod of enthusiasm from young Standish. “Arnauld loved going there when he was a small boy. He too was entranced with stories from the Bible.”