Vienna Prelude (21 page)

Thomas smiled and turned the key in the ignition. His car roared to a start, and he pulled into traffic just as a deafening crash of thunder boomed over the Adlon. He smiled slightly and shook his head. “Don’t worry,” he said, rolling his eyes upward toward the thunder. “I am only going home.” Then, as Theo’s cab turned onto Wilhelmstrasse, Thomas lifted his hand in brief farewell and turned the opposite direction on Behrenstrasse.

Thomas noted that Theo’s taxi was not moving toward the train station, but directly toward Tempelhof Airfield. As a series of lightning bolts flashed down to the ground, Thomas frowned at what was almost certainly Theo Lindheim’s last hope. Perhaps it was no hope at all, but somehow it seemed better than the web that waited for him here if he stayed.

***

Flights to Frankfurt, Munich, and Paris had been canceled, one after another. As darkness gathered above Tempelhof Airfield, disappointed passengers grumbled and filed out to find taxis back into the city. It would be morning at least before the next plane left Berlin, and even then, ticket holders were advised to call before they made the trip back to Tempelhof. Theo and Murphy filed through a crowd of angry officers and diplomatic couriers who grumbled among themselves about the unreliability of air travel. Most would take the night trains that departed Berlin every half hour.

Theo turned to Murphy. A bolt of lightning caused the lamps of the waiting room to dim and flicker a moment. “This is where we say good-bye, my friend.” Theo extended his hand.

“You sure you don’t want to try the train?” Murphy replied as yet another flash cracked the sky above Tempelhof.

A slight smile played on Theo’s lips. He shook his head almost imperceptibly. “I have flown in worse.”

“When?” Murphy frowned, genuinely worried as the torrential downpour increased.

“Those are stories to tell my grandchildren, Herr Murphy.” He turned slightly and looked toward the door that led out to the runway. There was no one standing guard. Out on the front sidewalk porters blew whistles, and disgruntled men crammed into cabs. One young man labored over the piles of tickets behind the counter. He purposely avoided making eye contact with the unhappy people who crowded in the line before him.

“You’re certain?” Murphy lowered his voice.

With a curt nod, Theo turned away from him and walked unnoticed toward the glass doors that lead to the tarmac. Murphy was the only one who watched him, the only one interested. A dozen small planes waited outside in the pouring rain. Lightning cut a jagged hole in the sky, making the aircraft and Theo Lindheim seem even smaller and more vulnerable.

Murphy stared openly. Men passed him, unseeing in their own unhappiness. The overcoat still over his arm, Theo strolled along the line of small planes like a man searching for his automobile in a parking lot. Twice he stopped to peer into the cockpits; then he moved on to the next plane.

Murphy’s heart hung in his throat as he watched the selection. For a moment he was filled with the fear that Theo would not find a plane suitable to fly. When Theo stopped at the side of an ancient biplane and put on his overcoat, Murphy was afraid that he had simply found another way to kill himself.

As if responding to Murphy’s thoughts, Theo looked up through the window into the waiting room.
What does he want?
Murphy glanced around. Theo was still unnoticed. “Okay,” Murphy mumbled, walking toward the door. The wind blew fiercely against the door as Murphy shoved it open. Theo’s overcoat flapped wildly. Murphy sprinted toward him; inside the lighted building, the passengers looked only toward the front entrance, where porters wrestled baggage into overcrowded vehicles.

“You can’t fly this!” Murphy protested, yelling above the wind.

The WW I vintage plane rocked and groaned in the gale. “I will need help!” Theo unstrapped a tarp from the propeller, letting the wind take it. Then he grasped Murphy by the arm and fixed him with an intent gaze. “The telegram!” he shouted. “From Anna, an address in Innsbruck—the Tyroler Haus. It may be a decoy, a cover for me.”

Murphy nodded, water streaming from his face. “I got it!” he yelled back. “But you can’t fly in this kind of storm!” Murphy held tightly to his drenched hat.

“I will need help starting the engine!” Theo called above the howl. “Remove the blocks from the wheels! We’ll have to push her out onto the runway!”

“Herr Lindheim! You won’t get her off the ground.”

Theo turned and scowled in a sudden angry resistance. “Tonight this storm is sent for me!” he shouted, gesturing toward the backs of the preoccupied passengers. “One way or another it will take me far from Germany, Herr Murphy!” Rain trickled from the bill of his cap, stinging his eyes. “Now help me push, or leave me to my own fate!”

Murphy stared at Theo in frustration. Here was a man who had planned to shoot himself a few hours before. A fragile biplane and a tempest that had grounded every flight in Germany looked better than the alternative. Murphy kicked away the wheel blocks and grasped the wing struts as Theo leaned his back into guiding the aircraft onto the dark runway. Murphy prayed that there no burst of lightning would illuminate their actions. “Can you find your way into Austria?” he asked as Theo climbed into the cockpit.

“I am heading directly to Prague.” Theo settled in the cramped, open seat behind the controls. “If I am delayed”—his voice was matter-of-fact—“you still have my letter! Tell Anna and the children what has happened!”

As the reporter looked up at the pilot, he was struck with the courage and nobility of this man Germany had declared an enemy of the state. “I’ll try Vienna first,” Murphy promised. “The Musikverein. Then if I don’t find her—” Murphy stopped, overcome by the feeling that he was watching the execution of a great man. Yes, Murphy would find Elisa. He would tell her of the brave and impossible attempt of her father to join them. Perhaps Theo felt that this was better than a bullet—more suitable, somehow. Murphy nodded in silent agreement. “I’ll tell them!” he bellowed against the unrelenting wind.

“Tell the men, the reporters, I give my thanks,
ja
?
Grüss Gott,
Herr Murphy!” Theo Lindheim saluted. “You will need to crank the propeller on three!”

Murphy nodded again and backed away, grasping the antique wooden propeller and heaving it downward with all his weight behind the push. To his surprise, the motor coughed and turned over with a deafening roar that blended into the sound of the wind. Water sprayed Murphy, soaking through his overcoat. He dodged a wingtip as the biplane spun into the wind and then, like a small bird lifted on a breeze, the aircraft lifted off the ground. It hovered in the dark sky over the field for an instant, and then, as lightning split the black clouds all around, it disappeared behind a curtain of rain.

For a long time, Murphy stood alone on the wet cement and stared off where he had last seen the aircraft bucking and rocking on the air currents. He expected to see the bright burst of an explosion as the conclusion for his news dispatch. Instead a more distant bolt of lightning arched toward the ground, and for an instant, Murphy thought he spotted the tiny aircraft as it cut a wake through the tempest.

15

A Matter of Conscience

Admiral Canaris, chief of the Abwehr of the Third Reich, tossed the file across his desk to Thomas von Kleistmann. “It was foolish of you to go to Lindheim’s office, Thomas. Foolish.”

“The Lindheims have been friends of my family since—” Thomas attempted a weak defense.

“All the more damning for you.” The older man’s ice-blue eyes searched Thomas’ face. “Could you possibly imagine that Himmler was not having Theo Lindheim watched? You thought that the Gestapo would not open a file on you as well?” He drummed his fingers impatiently on the folder. “They have made copies in triplicate, no doubt. One for themselves and Himmler, one for Hitler, and one for me, of course. Quite embarrassing that a member of my staff is caught sneaking down the back steps of a Jew’s office. And then his former lover emerges ten minutes later.”

“I did not even see Elisa!” Thomas snapped. “I did not know she was there.”

“That is not in the report, as you may well imagine.”

“They may say what they like in the report.”

“They will. And they have.”

“Certainly the Reich cannot condemn an innocent visit.”

Canaris leaned closer and smiled bitterly. “That is where we have all made our mistake. Or have you forgotten so early? The Reich may tell you whom you may love and whom you must hate. Oh yes, Thomas, the Reich can dictate the inward life of every man.”

“Not the inward life.” Thomas looked up sharply. “Only the outward show.”

“Are the two not the same?” Canaris leaned back. “Ah well, a philosophical question. One we should have thought in 1933 before it was too late.” He smiled slightly, as though hoping for some signal from Thomas in reply.

Thomas sat impassively. “So I have broken some law. Oh yes. I have forgotten it is a law now. I spoke with the man who was a friend to my father and to me since I was a child.”

“You cannot cover your act by sarcasm. There is too much at stake here. If
you
advised him to leave the country—”

“Then Hitler will simply nationalize all of his property and possessions, and Germany will be richer for it.”

“They would have done that anyway, sooner or later.”

“Then one less prisoner to feed at Dachau . . . or one less bullet for a Jewish industrialist.”

Canaris slammed his fist on the desk. “Enough! Don’t you realize that SS bullets are looking for places to lodge? If not the brain of a Jew, then perhaps the head of a young officer in the Abwehr!”

“Yes. That has occurred to me. And Germany would lose a loyal son.”

“Loyal to what? to whom?” The face of Canaris was intense. “To the laws? The laws change every day. If we are told that day is night and night day, then it must be so, or we will perish with those who are too proud to be liars.”

“I am a liar,” Thomas said. “Black is white.” There was a sense of weary desperation in his voice that matched the pain in once-honorable Canaris.

Canaris ran a hand through his silver hair. “No. Only men of truth admit to such a thing. There are many now among us who play at being liars. But it is only a game.” His eyes held those of Thomas. “Do you know why they gave me this report? This report of your meeting with Lindheim and his daughter?”

“I can guess.”

“Yes. They test my loyalty to them now. I am supposed to turn you over to them.”

“I supposed as much.”

“I have decided to give you another chance to prove your loyalty to the Fatherland, Thomas von Kleistmann. We are in need of good liars now, or I fear we will fall to the Father of Lies.”

Thomas stared down at his hands and then back at the folder. He was afraid to hear the words of Canaris—afraid that he was to become one more sacrifice in the long line of Nazi sacrificial victims. “What more can I do to prove my loyalty? A hundred times I have denied my conscience—”

“Yes. Your conscience. Yourself.” Canaris was not directing his words to Thomas any longer but had suddenly turned inward. He frowned and stared for an uncomfortably long time at the young man’s face. At last he spoke. “Perhaps it is time to find it again. A delicate balance. The truth. A lie. A man’s conscience.” He waved a hand distractedly in the air. “So. We must find a post for you. For Thomas von Kleistmann. Perhaps in Paris? Among the French? Do you speak French? Or perhaps in England? Do you fancy a trip across the Channel, Thomas?”

“It doesn’t matter. One place is as good as another,” he said quietly.

“Yes. The climate of Berlin cannot be healthful for you now; I am certain of that.” He dipped his pen in the brass inkwell on his desk and took out a sheet of stationery with his name on the letterhead. “The signature of Admiral Canaris is still worth something, although Himmler and the Gestapo would scratch it out if possible.” He paused midstroke and looked hard at Thomas. “This may yet be your death warrant.” His voice was almost sorrowful. “But if you stay it is a certainty that—”

“You have not yet said what is required of me.”

“I am not yet certain what is required of you. But when I know, you must swear by your duty—”

“Duty to what? to whom?”

“Your conscience. Only that.”

***

Herschel Grynspan had fallen asleep with his head on the makeshift desk in his tiny garret bedroom. The pen had fallen from his hand, smearing the clean, white sheet of stationery beneath it. Beside his chair multiple scraps of wadded paper spoke of his effort to write the letter he had carried inside him for so many days.

He dreamed of her now, as he had every night since he had seen her last. She was smiling, looking at him with the love and respect a woman has for her man. Together they stood on a corner of the Kudamm as endless parades of Nazi soldiers passed by. Boots crashed against the pavement as the men marched in perfect unity toward a wall of flame that reached to the sky. Row on row they disappeared into the fires as Elisa held Herschel’s hand in hers and smiled softly at the spectacle.

It was not the crash of boots that woke Herschel from his sleep but the shouting of angry voices outside on the street.

“Open! In the name of the Reich!” A short burst of automatic machine-gun fire accompanied the voices, followed by the sounds of splintering wood and hobnails crashing up the stairs. “Grynspan!” they cried, and Herschel knew at once who they were and why they had come.

He gathered his scraps of paper and lit the corner of one sheet with the flame of the candle. Fire devoured his thoughts and words, and his dreams were consumed in the bewildered cries of his father and the weeping of his mother.