Vienna Prelude (39 page)

“You had it coming, Murphy!” he yelled at himself as he glimpsed his own agonized reflection in the mirror. “She tried to tell you that first night and you didn’t listen! Taught you a lesson, didn’t she? Huh?”

And what a lesson! Couldn’t she have chosen an easier way? Yes, the day had been perfect. She had made it perfect, and then pulled the rug out from under him.

He opened the closet door and stood staring blankly at his own clothes for a moment; then, with a shake of his head, he pulled out his suitcase and began to toss his clothes into it. He
would
leave her alone! She was leaving Vienna—that was all he had been worried about for the last year. Now some other guy had taken care of his worries. He wouldn’t have to think about her anymore, wouldn’t worry if Austria did fall to Nazi Germany! Austria and Vienna could roast, for all Murphy cared!

He picked up his telephone and called the front desk. “This is John Murphy. What time does the last plane leave Vienna? For where? I don’t care. For anywhere. I just want to be on the plane—” He stared at the angels. At Joseph looking so longingly at Mary. At least Joseph had not made a fool of himself. Murphy had won the Fool of the Year Contest.

“Paris?” he said into the phone.

He thought quickly.
Paris has a branch of the International News Service. Sure, anyplace is home to me where there’s an INS office.

“Sure, book me on that flight, will you? Great. An hour? Sure.”

That gives me lots of time. I’ll need somebody to take back this monkey suit for me tomorrow.

“Right. Thanks.”

Murphy finished packing in record time. He even had a few minutes to pull the angels off the tree branches and pitch them back into their box. “Ten . . . eleven . . . ” He would leave eleven angels. Didn’t every man need at least one souvenir of his broken heart? Almost with reverence Murphy plucked the last angel from the tree and slipped her into his pocket. The others he would leave for Elisa and her boyfriend—a wedding present.

Carrying his small suitcase and the box of carvings, he hailed a taxi and gave the address of the airport, with one stop in between.

***

It took an hour before the call was put through to the Paris telephone number Thomas had given her. Now, waiting in the public telephone office, Elisa stared blankly at the wall where government posters urging support of Chancellor Schuschnigg and an independent Austria hung.

She felt strangely emotionless, as though she were an spectator, watching herself pay the operator, watching herself sit down to wait, watching herself watching herself. Had she ever been so numb?

Of course she was doing the right thing. Could there be any doubt? She had committed herself to Thomas six years before. She had committed her heart to loving him even if he never loved her with the tenderness that she had longed for. She loved Thomas, didn’t she? Wasn’t this the moment she had prayed for and waited for?
Then, why am I so numb?
Even the whispered song of lament had died within her after she had watched Herr Haupt take the letter.

The voice of the operator interrupted her. “Fraülein, your call to Paris has been put through. Fraülein?”

Elisa turned her head to look at the woman behind the tall switchboard. “Paris?”

“Yes, Fraülein,” she urged. “You can take it in that booth. I will transfer the call there.”

So the moment had arrived. Thomas waited on the other end of the line. Elisa moved toward the walnut phone booth unhurriedly. She shut the glass door behind her and the light came on, illuminating yet another poster proclaiming Austrian independence against a foreign aggression. She stared at the phone for an instant, unsure that she would pick it up. Then she watched her hand grasp the receiver and heard her own voice say the name, “Thomas.”

A faraway voice crackled into her ear. “Elisa? Elisa, darling?” He had forgotten his own warning about not using names. “Is that you?” Thomas—familiar, yet strange to her. Eager, hopeful, breathless. The way she had once felt about him.

“Yes, Thomas, it’s me.”

“Darling!” The voice was almost tearful in its relief. “I was so afraid. So afraid you wouldn’t get my letter; then so afraid that once you had it you would throw it away.”

“No, Thomas. I would never throw your letter away.” Her heart finished the line silently:
Like you threw me away.

Then he said the words. “I love you, darling! I have always loved you! Can you hear me, Elisa? Do you hear what I am saying?”

“Yes. I can hear you.” She listened to her own words. Could she not find some slight intonation of excitement?
Forte, Elisa!

“Are you all right?” He sounded worried.

“I . . . I don’t know. Not about anything anymore.” She startled herself, not intending to express the slightest doubt to him now that he had come back to her.

“Yes.” He sounded understanding. “I knew you might feel that way. But when we are together, you will see! You will see that you are the most important thing in my life!”

Maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe she didn’t really care anymore what was important in his life. “If only you could have said these things last year!” Now the emotion came—questioning, accusing. Why had he stood by while Theo Lindheim was arrested? What did it matter what Thomas felt? Her father was gone. Their family shattered, run out of Germany. And Thomas, and men like him, had let it happen.

“Last year I thought I could make a difference if I stayed. I have been in Paris since last Christmas. And Elisa—about your father—I know how hurt you all are. He was like a father to me as well.”

Then you are the worst kind of Judas.
The thought stunned Elisa with its clarity. “Thomas,” she suddenly decided, “I cannot come to Paris.”

“Then I will come to Vienna. I know there is much we have to heal.”

“No. My life is good here. I have found a life of my own.”

“Another man?”

She did not answer. Thoughts of Murphy, his eyes full and warm, came to her in a rush. And then she remembered the letter. “No, I mean, I don’t know. Thomas, I . . . I think I may be falling in love with another man—”

The line crackled so badly that for a moment she thought they might have been disconnected. Then his voice faded in again. “Don’t worry. We will be better than we were before. I’m coming to Vienna, darling. After the first of the year I have some time. I am coming to Vienna!” He did not wait for her reply. “You are mine. You have always been mine.” The voice faded out again.

Elisa felt suddenly desperate to see Murphy. “I have to go now.”

“I love you, darling! Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.” She hung up and stepped from the booth, feeling suddenly awake, and icy cold with a new fear inside.
Murphy! Have I let him go? Have I chased him away? He loves me. I see it in his eyes. Maybe he never got the letter. Oh, God, please, make him not get the letter!

***

Her skin was ashen as she jumped from the taxi and ran up the steps of the hall. She could hear the deep, mellow sound of Leah’s cello, but she did not think about music now; she only thought about him.
Row ten, aisle seat.

“Fraülein Linder!” the orchestra manager whispered hoarsely as she came backstage. “Are you not home in bed?”

“No.”

“You look
terrible
! Go home!” he insisted.

Elisa tiptoed to the wings of the stage and stared out past the orchestra, past Leah, past the maestro and the footlights. The aisle seat, row ten, was vacant! She stood, shaking her head in dismay. The hand of the orchestra manager tapped her lightly on the shoulder, then pulled her back.

“Go home! You are delirious to be here. Rudy has not come either, but they are managing.”

She staggered past him, then stumbled down the steps and back to where her taxi waited.

“Where to, Fraülein?”

“Sacher Hotel. Please hurry.”

It was only a short distance, but Elisa was unsure that her legs could carry her now.
Please, God, let him be there
.

***

Murphy took the steps of Elisa’s apartment two at a time. His taxi waited down below in the street. He would not stay, even if she asked him. He had already decided that. She had said it all in the letter, and he would not force himself on her again. But the least he could do is leave her the angels—say good-bye and good luck, maybe give her a piece of his mind for stringing him along like a ten-pound catfish on a line.

He knocked on the door, softly at first. Then he waited and knocked again harder. A door opened on the floor below and Murphy heard a voice call up. “You are looking for Eleeeza?”

“I have a package for her,” he called down the stairwell.

“Well, Eleeeza is not at home.”

“When will she be back?”

“I cannot say. She had to meet a young man, I think.”

Murphy did not answer. All the things he wanted to say to her now made no difference. A stiff jolt of sick disappointment told him the truth about himself. He had not really come here to bring her a box of angels. He stood at the door and knocked, hoping she would let him in, into her heart—like the music of Bach in her secret place. He wanted to tell her, wanted to ask her, wanted . . . her.

“It’s just as well,” Murphy said, now resigned to the horrible truth. “Just as well she isn’t here.” He placed the box carefully at her threshold like an offering.

“You want me to tell Eleeza you were here?”

“No. No. It doesn’t matter. I’m just a messenger. Tell her a messenger came.
Danke.”

Murphy did not look to the right or the left as he marched down the stairs. He did not touch the banister. Her hands had caressed the smooth wood a thousand times, and he feared some magic in her touch might remain there and would somehow root him at the foot of her steps to wait until she came back again.
With him
, whoever
he
was. Murphy had made enough of a fool of himself.

The cold air felt good on his face as he emerged from the building. He stood in the street and inhaled to clear his head of the sense of her nearness. Then he squared his shoulders and got back into the cab.

“The airport,” he said quietly. “I’m going to Paris for Christmas.”

***

Breathlessly Elisa ran to the front desk of the Sacher Hotel. An indolent, dignified clerk peered at her from over the top of his reading glasses.

“Please,” she said urgently, “can you tell me the room number for John Murphy?”

“It is against policy. We call up to rooms, you see, before we give out the room number. Suppose he didn’t want to see you?”

“Call him. Tell him Elisa is here, and there has been a terrible mistake. Please call him up. I was supposed to meet him here this afternoon, but I was delayed.”

The clerk’s face registered amusement at her eagerness. He smirked unpleasantly. “Well, I am sure I cannot call him up, Fraülein.”

“Please. If you tell him it is Elisa—”

“I am very sorry, Fraülein. Herr John Murphy has checked out, you see. He left here”—he glanced at his watch—“half an hour ago. I’m sure his plane has left by now.”

“Plane?”

“Yes, Fraülein. He had a plane to catch.”

“To where?” Her voice was too eager, too pleading. The clerk had seen such cases before. A young female trying to track down a man . . .

“I am sure I can’t tell you where he has gone, Fraülein,” he answered as his duty demanded. “But Herr Murphy is most certainly gone.”

***

When Herr Haupt called up to Elisa on the stairway, reporting the successful completion of his mission, she simply thanked him, picked up the box on the threshold, and inserted the key into her lock as quickly as she could. She had no strength left for more than that.

Sinking down onto the bed, she opened the package. “Murphy,” she said dully, staring without seeing at the jumble of tiny wings and golden strings. Without bothering to undress, she lay back and pulled the blanket over herself before she slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.

***

Elisa had lost all track of time and place when the urgent voice of Leah pulled her reluctantly from her sleep.

“Elisa! Wake up!” Leah shook her roughly. “Please! Elisa!”

Groggy and confused, Elisa opened her eyes and pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “Leah, how did you . . . what time is it?”

Leah scraped a chair across the floor to sit down directly across from Elisa. “I let myself in. It is almost two.”

“In the morning? Why aren’t you home in bed?”

Leah looked at her disheveled friend. “You’re still dressed. You went to bed in your shoes.”

“I . . . I don’t feel well.”

Suddenly Leah embraced her and said in a tearful voice, “I’m so glad you’re all right. So glad. They said you had shown up during the concert, and then left. I thought maybe you had heard about Rudy!” She broke down. Her shoulders shook with uncontrollable sobs.

“Rudy? Rudy?” Her own troubles seemed to take on less significance. “What? What happened, Leah? Is he hurt? Dead? What has happened?” She remembered the clear anger in the voice of the manager. Rudy had not shown up for his meeting with the maestro. He had not made it to the performance.

Leah’s chin trembled. She shook her head in disbelief at the horror of the night. “After the performance, the police came—dozen of Shupos backstage. They would not let any of us go home. They asked questions and questions about Rudy!” She started to break down again but caught herself. “They wanted to know if we had seen him. What had been his state of mind. They even detained the maestro, Elisa, as though we were criminals! And then they told us”—she covered her face with her hands—“oh, Elisa! So terrible! The man who shot at Rudy that night at the concert—he was the brother of Irmgard Schüler!”

Elisa recognized the name. Irmgard Schüler was the woman Rudy had been seeing for over a year. Her husband, a leader in the Austrian Nazi Party, had been imprisoned for his activities against the Schuschnigg Catholic government and Austria. He had been released, but even then, Rudy had continued to see this woman. So. Her brother tried to kill Rudy. “So much for his motive,” Elisa said quietly, placing a hand on Leah’s arm.