Vienna Prelude (52 page)

Elisa felt the world spin around her. She groped toward a parked car and dropped to her knees on the cobblestones. She was violently sick; her head throbbed as she pulled herself up and then walked carefully toward a waiting cab.

The driver assumed she was one of the musicians. He smiled over his shoulder; then his smile faded at the vision of the pale, pained young woman behind him.

“Where to, Fraülein?”

“Bavaria Hotel,” she said with difficulty.

“Too much beer, Fraülein?” he asked sympathetically.

Too much. Too much everything
. She stared silently out the window and prayed for her father . . . and for Thomas as he traveled through this sick, unhappy land to help her father.

35

Vision of the Apocalypse

Since the night of the eight candles in Dachau, the scourge of typhus had raced through the weakened prisoners, and men died by the hundreds in the barracks of the camp. The eight of the Herrgottseck were spared for a short time. The priest and the cantor joined the man they called Jacob Stern, breaking rocks for road work in the day and comforting the dying men of the barracks through the night.

There was no medicine to heal, nothing even to ease the pain of those racked by fever. The worn-out blankets did little to keep them warm. They died with the names of wives and children and sweethearts on their lips. They died calling out to God for mercy. They died cursing God for their fate.

At five-thirty each morning, those who could walk staggered out to wait in ragged lines for roll call. The guards delighted in making them stand for hours in the cold until dozens more dropped to the ground to be kicked and beaten.

On the bitter morning of December 31, 1937, Theo answered to his number as he had done for a year. He had almost forgotten his own name. His number and new identity had been crudely pressed onto a base metal tag, then locked onto his wrist on a thick bracelet made of chain like the collars of the guard dogs. But the dogs were treated more humanely than the men.

Six rows ahead of him, Theo could see the swaying figure of the priest. Theo knew that the priest had also contracted typhus. The skin on his face and bald head glowed with fever. His eyes were red, and he could barely stand this morning. To the left of the priest, the cantor stood. His head was bowed and his breathing labored. So soon the candles flickered and dimmed before Theo’s eyes. Where was the light they had sung about? Where was the hope they had affirmed: “
And Thy word broke their sword when our own strength failed us!
”

The priest was the first in his line to fall. The shouts of the guards filled the prison yard. Blows to his back and head failed to bring him to his feet. As prisoners watched silently, the priest lay still and lifeless beneath the furious blows of the guard’s boots.

The cantor turned to look at Jacob Stern. Tears of anguished helplessness streamed down his face. The two men locked eyes.
Remember the covenant! Remember what is done here!

The body of the priest was left where he had fallen. Inmates marched around him, stumbled over him, grieving numbly for the loss of such a light.

By nightfall the cantor too lay delirious on the wooden pallet. His soaring fever kept the men around him warm. Jacob Stern shared his ration of watery soup with him, holding his head and forcing some liquid down his throat.

Brown eyes, pleading, looked up. “Tonight I call you Theo, Jacob Stern.” There was a hint of a smile on his cracked lips. “There is no need for me to fear what they do to me. Theo Lindheim. We know. We all know you.” The eyes were glazed with fever.

Theo stroked the man’s head. “You must not talk, Nathan,” Theo said softly. “Save your strength.”

“Why? I will not need it by morning.” He knew. He licked his lips. “Promise me—”

“What is it?” Theo asked, bending his ear close to the mouth of the dying man. “What, Nathan?” There was pain in his voice. Could the cantor leave them so soon? After such a night of hope, could they lose the light of two such men in one day?

“Say Kaddish for me.” The words were soft. “Remember my Jahrzeit.”

“You must get well,” Theo insisted.

“No. Too tired. No oil in the lamp.”

“You
must
not die.”

The cantor’s eyes suddenly became clear. “Remember the covenant. Live, Jacob Stern . . .
Theo
. And tell them. My wife and children are in Strassburg.”

“I will tell them how you sang for Hanukkah. I will tell them about the lights.”

“Yes, the lights. My wife’s name is Reba . . . tell her.” He slept.

Theo sat clutching his knees and watching the cantor through the long night. He dozed, then jerked his head up to watch and wait again. Some time before daybreak, the rasping breath of the cantor fell silent, and in a broken voice Theo began to sing as the spirit of the cantor soared above the walls of Dachau.

***

By ten-thirty that morning, Elisa was already in the Marienplatz of Munich, waiting as Leah had instructed her. At precisely 10:45, she entered the public restroom and placed the watertight package containing seven passports into the tank of the toilet in the last stall.

The old woman who worked as the restroom attendant simply smiled at her and handed her a towel after she washed her hands. That much of the assignment had gone easily.

Elisa emerged onto the Platz again just before eleven o’clock and searched the teeming crowds of market-day shoppers. She was to meet the young couple Leah had described to her and the two tiny children she was to take from them.

Her own grief for her father was still sharp and intense. The thought of taking two children from their parents, possibly forever, simply piled grief on top of grief.

At eleven, in the tower above the huge square, the Glockenspiel clanged out the hour as figures of knights and ladies danced in front of it. All eyes in the Platz were turned upward for the show—all, that is, except for Elisa’s. As her eyes scanned the square, she prayed that she would find them, and prayed again that the parents would have changed their minds. How could anyone give up children?

Behind her, she heard the cooing of a baby. She turned to face a young man whose features were so anguished that there was no mistaking who he was or why he had come. Two young children were in a covered pram. Elisa’s gaze fixed on the father. Her eyes brimmed with tears of sympathy for him. He bit his lip, looked one last time at his little ones and then at Elisa. They did not speak.

As the clock above them finished chiming, he turned on his heel and disappeared into the market crowds. For a moment Elisa stood beside the pram, then put her hands on it and pushed it through the throngs of people. The children did not even notice that their father had gone. They did not protest or complain or cry. Wide-eyed, they stared at the bustle around them. The baby was soon rocked to sleep by the bump of the wheels against the cobblestones.

Soon little Max was also asleep. It was a small miracle for Elisa. She had spent the night imagining that they would gape at her and scream hysterically for Mommy and Daddy.

Even as they boarded the streetcar for their ride to the Bahnhof and the train to Prague, the children slept without noticing that the hands that guided the pram were not those of their father. They slept on and on.

Amid the clamor of the public address system in the station and the whistle of the trains, they still slept. As Elisa struggled with violin case and small suitcase and the pram, a porter assisted her onto the train. She was worried about the little ones when they lay so still beneath their blankets. Still, she was afraid that she might wake them and begin a wail that would not go unnoticed. She left them in the pram and rolled it between the seats in front of her. She could see the faces of the children, their cheeks pink and healthy. They breathed deeply and peacefully as the train chugged back across the German countryside toward the border of Czechoslovakia. Beautiful children. How could their parents bear such a parting? She wondered now what the mother must be feeling. And how would the children react when they finally woke up and saw the worried face of a stranger staring down at them?

Elisa pulled the small suitcase from beneath the pram. She opened it, relieved to see an ample supply of diapers, bottles of milk, and a tin of biscuits for the two-year-old. On top of it all was a large bottle of cough syrup with instructions scrawled on the outside.
For restlessness when traveling. Baby 1 tsp. Max 2 tsp.
The children were not ill. Suddenly it became clear to Elisa why they slept so deeply. They had been given the medicine to make them sleep. For their own safety as well as Elisa’s, the possibility of fearful tears within the grim borders of the Reich had been eliminated.

Elisa closed the case and pulled out the passports.
Thank you.
She sighed, uncertain that she could have handled screaming children and Gestapo agents too.

Her relief was so great that she found herself actually able to chat pleasantly when the Gestapo prowled through the cars checking papers at the border.

The train slid into Czechoslovakia without one question. And the children did not awaken until the whistle blew for Prague.

***

For three days, Elisa stayed in Prague with her mother. She did not tell her about the two children who had gone from Germany to safety without ever once seeing who had delivered them. She did not tell her mother that she had watched from a hill above Dachau or that Theo might be alive inside the living hell of that place. She waited to hear how her mother was bearing up.

Anna shared her hopes with Elisa as they washed the dishes one night in the little house Theo had bought for their safety. “Every night your father comes to me in my dreams,” Anna told her wistfully.

Elisa could see that the strain of the last year had taken its toll on her mother. For the first time, Anna looked older. Her eyes were hauntingly sad, as though they had seen a thousand years of suffering in only one.

“Then you are together sometimes,” Elisa said gently.

“It is a strange and wonderful thing to dream.” Anna passed her a plate. “Every night God restores what I have lost during the day. Such sweet dreams! Every night we are at home in Berlin—your father in his library, and I at the piano. Just like it used to be. Or we are together in Paris. Or once again you are all small, and we walk through St. Stephan’s while your father shops for the store. And sometimes we sit together and talk.”

“What does he say?” The thought of the machine-gun fire at Dachau clouded Elisa’s face.

Anna gazed into Elisa’s eyes. “He tells me I should not worry. That we will be together again one day.” Tears brimmed, and Anna quickly focused on the dishwater. “And I believe that. Yes. In heaven we will see one another again, if not in this life.”

Elisa put down the dish towel and hugged her mother. How she wanted to tell her about the file! About Thomas! But she did not dare. Wasn’t there enough for Anna to worry about? Theo had saved his wife from knowing what he was doing in Germany. Elisa would not tell her mother that she had been back to Germany for any reason.

“Oh, Mother! I do hope it is in
this
lifetime that we are all together again! The house in Berlin, all the things that were our life then—none of that matters if only we can be together!”

Anna seemed not to hear Elisa’s hope. “Of course, in the daytime, when I wake up and he isn’t here,” she sighed, “I feel gray inside. Like an empty box. But I have my dreams. Yes. Each night a merciful hand reaches out to soothe all the wounds that man has inflicted on us during the day.”

“Do you believe he’ll come back to us, Mother?” She did not want to give Anna false hope. Until she heard from Thomas again, the information would be more cruel than kind.

“Believe?” Anna considered the word. “I can’t believe anymore, Elisa. But I hope. And I pray for him with every breath and heartbeat” She tossed her head and looked out the window to where the hundred towers of Prague blended into the soft light of dusk. “I look at the stars and the sky and I wonder if he can see them too. And if he is . . .
gone
, then I imagine that he is looking back at me. And I whisper happy things to him. About you and the boys. Maybe he can hear and is happy too. But no, I cannot believe that he will come through that door and take me in his arms again. I had to give that up or I would have died from longing. Sometimes it’s better to give up.” She frowned and shook her head. “I’m not making sense, am I?”

“Yes, Mother. I think I understand.” And then Elisa sang the words of the melody: ‘God alone must have my heart.’”

Anna smiled. “Always music, Elisa,” she teased. “Yes. I have given up and given my hopes and beliefs to God. He knows. There is no other answer that I can find.”

***

On the way back to Vienna, Elisa could not help but think how her mother hoped without
knowing
any of what Elisa knew. Anna had been able to trust that the fate of the one man she had ever loved was not in her hands, but in hands far more wise and capable than her own.

Elisa was glad she had not given her any more to hold on to. And as the weeks passed with no word from Thomas, she became more convinced that her silence had been merciful for Anna.

***

The waiting room outside the office of Admiral Canaris was crowded with young men in uniform who had come to offer some information or beg some favor from the great man. Thomas sat among them as they smoked or chatted quietly about innocuous subjects like the weather or the fight scheduled for June between the Nazi pugilist Max Schmeling and the black American Joe Louis.

“The Führer is confident that Schmeling will defeat the Negro. Aryan blood will tell.”

The Americans would delight in a victory for this Joe Louis fellow. Imagine! They support a Negro instead of a white man . . . an Aryan! They say he can’t even talk properly. Poor Max will be fighting a gorilla. A strange place, America!”