Vienna Prelude (17 page)

“They say that England is too far away to help,” Elisa whispered, “and God is too high up to hear—”

“God is not too high, Elisa.” Anna drew herself up and wiped her eyes. “He is where He has always been. Either in the heart of a man or not. We have watched the laws die, your father and I, and it is like Pastor Jacobi said:
‘
They crucify the Messiah again when they crucify true justice.’
”

Elisa blanched at the strength of such words and the certain fate of such a statement against the new laws of the Reich. “He said that?”

“Yes. And they arrested him, warned him to excommunicate all Jewish believers in his congregation or he would be arrested again. They released him, and he warned your father. We knew we had to get out then.”

“They will kill Pastor Jacobi for that.”

“Yes.” Anna sighed. “He told your father he was content with his fate—that men had also killed Jesus for speaking the truth.” She took Elisa’s hand. “There are no miracles, Elisa, but it is not because God is too high up. No, He is still being crucified with men like Jacobi and ten thousand others in those terrible camps. Maybe even your father. We have to admit that possibility, I suppose. The Nazis and their torchlight marches, the flag, the pagan symbols. They will crucify men to satisfy their need for a sacrifice to this god of theirs.” Anna leaned her head back wearily on the pillows. “It has gone too far. People let it go too far. And now it has taken over because no one spoke loud enough against it. The few who have are already dead or rotting in some prison. Your father has been lucky up until now. The people admired him. Now I suppose Hitler will find some way to make him an enemy of Germany; he has done it with so many others. Everything that is good—” She shook her head as she stared at Theo’s skis propped in the corner.

The two women sat silently for a long time. Downstairs they could hear the call of the cuckoo clock hanging in the Stube.

“It is two in the morning, Mother,” Elisa said gently. “Do you still want a cup of tea?”

“No.” Anna raised her eyebrows slightly in resignation. “No. It is too late. We should sleep, and perhaps there will be one more miracle when we wake up.”

***

Drawing on some hidden reserve of strength, Anna Lindheim descended the steps into the low-ceilinged Stube with a smile on her lips. Frau Marta greeted her like an old friend and bustled about preparing a hearty breakfast of sausage and eggs as Anna explained their plans for the trip to Innsbruck.

“Certainly!” Frau Marta exclaimed. “Go and have a good time! Your fellows will be fine here with Friedrich and Helmut. No doubt we will see them only at mealtime.” She babbled on happily as her seventeen-year-old daughter Gretchen served them fresh bread and butter churned just that morning in the predawn hours.

Gretchen was as silent as her mother was verbose. Her thick red hair was braided and carefully pinned up. She smiled shyly as she poured tall glasses of frothy milk and blushed when Wilhelm openly stared into her gentle brown eyes. Elisa suspected that Wilhelm’s obvious interest in the girl was one reason he did not want to ask the Wattenbarger’s opinion about Jews.

“You will stay out of trouble, boys?” Anna asked her sons.

They both nodded in unison, their faces reflecting the innocence of angels. “Of course, Mother.”

Frau Marta ladled eggs onto their already heaping plates. “And if they do not behave”—she waved the spoon threateningly in the air—“I have four sons of my own, don’t forget.”

Dieter laughed nervously, and Wilhelm continued to gaze at Gretchen with undisguised interest. At seventeen, Wilhelm was already nearly six feet tall and had the same ruggedly handsome features of his father. Elisa was convinced that shy Gretchen was as interested in Wilhelm as he was in her. “You may need something a little stouter than a spoon to beat my brothers with, Frau Marta,” she said.

Wilhelm shot her a sullen look, then returned his gaze to Gretchen. “Because she is twenty-three she knows everything,” he grumbled, and Gretchen giggled approval of his remark.

Their looks were not lost on the sturdy farmwife. “They’ll be out in the snow today,” she murmured. “That will cool them a bit, I think.”

“Can Franz take us to the station?” Anna asked.

“No. Otto and Franz are helping their father at the barn this morning. We have a mare in foal. Franz has been sleeping in the barn. A fine little mare, and this is her first. Friedrich will take you.” She disappeared into the kitchen, and the matter was settled.

***

Three hours later Anna and Elisa stepped off the train in Innsbruck. The sky, a clear blue, seemed suspended on the jagged white peaks of the mountains that reared up from the valley slopes in every direction.

There was a telegraph office in the Bahnhof, but Anna walked past it and out of the station onto Rudolfstrasse. “The place is thick with German tourists,” she whispered to Elisa.

It was easy to distinguish the Germans from the native Austrians. Tourists from Berlin and Munich often sported the comical little mustache inspired by Hitler, while the Tyroleans had long, drooping mustaches and wore the red-and-white colors of Austria on their armbands. The Chancellor of Austria was from the Tyrol, and in this part of the country the people made their politics quite clear to visitors from across the border. They made their statements without uttering a word to the German tourists.

Porters, guides, and carriage drivers accepted German marks, but they did not accept the strange notions of their guests. Coffeehouses frequented by native Tyroleans were often rocked with laughter about the flatlanders and their curious ways. Publicly, however, the Austrians were polite and correct in their relations with the Germans, ready to remind them that the Tyrol had been part of Austria for five hundred years, but only briefly was it linked to Prussia. Hitler’s claims that Austria should be unified with Germany were scoffed at in the face of history.

Nearly all of these pleasant Tyroleans could name ancestors who had lost their lives in a battle against Germans in 1866. Most of them believed that their independence from the grasping tentacles of the Nazi Reich would be safeguarded by the League of Nations and an alliance with Rome and Hungary. It was certain that Italy did not want the Germans at their back door, and only Austria stood between the nations of Germany and Italy. Innsbruck itself was the crossroad, the buffer that separated the two giants. If Hitler moved against Austria, the government of Vienna had the promise of Rome that Italian forces would come to the aid of little Austria.

The street was lined with horse-drawn carriages. Anna called up to a driver. “We are in need of a good hotel. Tyroler Haus we hear is close to the Bahnhof,
bitte.
” Her accent betrayed her Viennese upbringing. He smiled and tipped his cap. The smile was genuine. She was obviously an Austrian.

“The Tyroler Haus is just there. On Bahnstrasse. Have you any luggage?” he asked, climbing down from the carriage.

“No,” Anna answered hurriedly. “We need a room for a friend.
Danke
!” She took Elisa’s arm and walked quickly toward the hotel, which was directly across from the Post and a branch of the telegraph office.

Elisa recognized the place from Franz’s description as they entered the lobby of the typically Tyrolean hotel. The building had probably been built two hundred years earlier. Heavy beams and low ceilings were dark with the patina of age. “A hotel room?” she asked as her mother stepped up to the desk.

Anna did not respond to her; instead she addressed the gray-haired old man in leather breeches who slipped mail into the slots of the boxes behind the counter. “Have you a room, mein Herr?”

He turned slowly, appraising her over the top of his spectacles. “It is high season, Fraülein,” he explained. “Nothing at all, I’m afraid. No. Nothing.” On his sleeve the colors of Austria were tied.

Anna looked disappointed. She frowned, then stared hard at his armband. He noticed her gaze and smiled slightly. “When will you have a room available?” she asked, lowering her voice.

“Perhaps a day or two. Is there some way I might help you?”

Anna looked into his face, then back at the armband as though she was making a decision. “Yes. I think you might.” She hesitated and looked at Elisa. “We need to rent a room.”

“I have no rooms today.”

“Then for tomorrow.”

He checked the registry. “Of course. Yes. Tomorrow. And for how long will you need the room?”

“Until Christmas Day. Perhaps longer, but at least until then.” She smiled her most charming smile, and he slid the registry across the counter to her.

“You have just come in on the train? You have luggage?”

“No luggage. The room is for a friend.” She signed her name.

“Also from Vienna?” He seemed pleased that he had recognized her accent.

“No. From Berlin.”

A veil of reserve immediately dropped over his face. “From Berlin.” There was a coolness in his voice.

Anna leaned closer. “We are
hoping
he will come.” There was an urgency in her tone that made the old clerk meet her gaze.

“Yes. I see.” He looked troubled as he studied the name written on the registry. “He is coming alone?”

“There may be others who ask about him. Or they may ask about me. How long I have registered, things like that. They may ask about my two sons.” Anna gestured toward Elisa. “And my daughter.”

“Yes.” He nodded. “And do your children like Innsbruck? They enjoy skiing?” He studied the name again, then added, “Frau Lindheim?”

“Very much.” She was certain that the old Austrian understood some of what was happening. “And they hope to see their father before Christmas.”

“Indeed. Innsbruck is such a fine place for the holidays. Much more pleasant than Berlin. Berlin is so gray and dreary nowadays I hear.” He winked knowingly. “The Tyroler Haus shall eagerly await the arrival of your husband, Frau Lindheim. He will not have far to go from the station.”

“There may be a message sent to me here.”

“It will be in your box when you return.”

“And now I am in need of a good physician.” She touched his red-and-white armband. “One who perceives distress as clearly as you do.”

“I hope you are not ill!” The old man seemed alarmed.

“My oldest son, Wilhelm, has injured himself on the slopes.”

“Wilhelm.” He repeated the name as though filing it away in his memory. “Ski injuries are quite common in Innsbruck.” He wrote down the name of a doctor and slid the paper to her. “Doctor Wertmann. A good fellow.” He lowered his voice. “Jewish. Also from Berlin recently. He is quite discreet, Frau Lindheim.”

“I recognize the name.” She folded the paper and put it in her coat pocket, then opened her purse to pay. “How much do I owe you for the room, Herr—”

“Schroder.” He held up a hand in protest. “You owe me nothing, Frau Lindheim, until the guest arrives,
ja
? And we will hope for your sake that he comes. At that time I will happily accept payment for lodging. You will need a room number and a key.” He turned to scan the boxes, then pulled a key out of number seven. “A French couple has the room until tomorrow. I will hold it open for Herr Lindheim after they check out.”

***

Elisa was astonished at the ease with which they had made a much-needed connection in Innsbruck. They had, in fact, told the old clerk nothing incriminating, and yet her mother had given him all the information needed in the likelihood that the Gestapo should check their lodgings in Austria. When asked, he could tell them that Frau Theo Lindheim was staying at the hotel with her three children, and that the oldest boy was injured in a skiing accident.

Then Anna spoke with Dr. Wertmann, and he agreed that Wilhelm should remain immobile for at least a month. Certainly they would not be able to return to Berlin until the boy had recovered somewhat. An extension of their Ausweis, the German travel permit, was easily arranged through the Fremde Intelligence Office near the hotel on Rudolfstrasse.

Armed with all this information, Anna and Elisa sat down for lunch at the Café Maximillian and spent the next two hours writing a series of letters to Theo in Berlin. Each letter was dated in sequence through Christmas and reported the progress of Whilhelm’s recuperation after the accident, as well as the details of their holiday in Innsbruck. Each expressed the desire to see him soon and the hope that the government mix-up would soon be straightened out.

Stamped and sealed, the letters were then left with Herr Schroder at the hotel. One letter would be posted each day until the arrival of Theo Lindheim.

A final stop at the telegraph office relayed the urgent message that Wilhelm had been badly injured while skiing near Innsbruck. The return address was listed as Tyroler Haus, Room 7, Bahnstrasse, Innsbruck, Austria.

12

The Bait

Theo Lindheim had not shaved in three days. He sat in the red leather chair in his library and stared up at the shining volumes on the shelves. As daylight streamed through the window, he reached up and turned off the reading lamp on the table beside him.

He ran a hand wearily over his face and pressed his fingertips against his throbbing temples. The outcome of his arrest in Munich had been a simple matter of answering a few questions, and then he was escorted back to Berlin on the morning train. An official car had driven him to his own doorstep, and he had been dropped off with the Gestapo assurance that additional “routine questioning” would take place within a week or two. His travel permit had been revoked.

He had not been asked the whereabouts of Anna and the children. The Gestapo had no interest in where they were now. With Theo Lindheim back in Berlin, his wife and children would return.

Theo now understood everything quite clearly. He had offered a sizable amount of cash to the officer who had brought him home.

“Herr Lindheim, you are a Jew, and therefore, an alien. Everything in your possession now, down to the last Reichsmark, is already owned by the state. You cannot offer us anything
here
!” The man had laughed at the absurdity of Theo’s naive offer.