Vienna Prelude (5 page)

“That’s the last you’ll see of that!” Leah called playfully.

Elisa shook her head and held up the violin case. “You’re all witnesses!” she answered. “He pays me back, or I keep the Guarnerius!”

The orchestra members gave a collective cheer and wished her a good holiday. No sooner had the train left the station than Elisa missed each one of them, including Rudy. Holding his precious instrument in her arms, she watched until the last glimmer of the caboose light vanished in the fog that had descended on Prague.

It was an hour until her train was due to leave for Berlin. The station now seemed vacant and lonely. She sat down on a long empty bench beside the one small suitcase she had chosen to take to Berlin. It was wise to travel light in Germany these days since everything was subject to search. She had sent everything else back to Vienna with Leah, and if she needed anything, she would simply make a trip to Lindheim’s Berlin store.

Suddenly she felt very drowsy as the weeks of travel and work settled on her. Leaning her cheek against the violin case, she dozed until the train for Berlin arrived at midnight.

***

No music brushed the towers of Prague now.

In the midnight silence of the mist it seemed to Günther that the very streets of Prague were alive. The cobblestones were simply the scales of some giant slumbering serpent that would awaken at the touch of the man’s shoes upon its back and turn to devour him with a roar. Dark houses, their carved portals gaping down at his guilt, leaned and mocked him as he tried to walk more softly. Above the gables and rooftops the hundred spires of Prague’s great churches receded into the fog. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up, hoping for a glimpse of the tower of Tyn Church, or beyond, St. Nicolas Church or the Hradcany Castle. But they had vanished.
Vanished!

The musty scent of damp earth surrounded him. His footsteps echoed loudly, as if someone was following. Mist assaulted his eyes, causing him to blink rapidly as he strained to find his way through the crooked streets of the Old Town. From some unseen corner the shrill laugh of a woman sounded, and a man’s voice joined hers. Günther sighed in relief that he was not the only human invading the domain of the night. And then the laughter sounded again. Louder. Was it laughter meant for him?

He gasped and stopped, leaning against the cold wet stone to clear his mind. Sweat and mist trickled together and ran down his face. He did not bother to wipe it off. He wished he had not lingered so long in the beer hall beneath the arcade. He leaned his head back, and the serpent earth began to move. He felt sick. Drunk. He listened as the laughter of the man and woman drifted away. Their voices teased and toyed with one another until their footsteps grew faint.

Beyond them Günther could hear the rush of the Moldau River as it foamed angrily against the piers of Charles Bridge.

Yes! Charles Bridge!

It was there. There just beyond his vision. Günther fumbled in the pocket of his tattered overcoat. He felt the reassuring smoothness of the paper on the small bundle. Opening his eyes, he stepped out onto the scales again and stepped more steadily toward the sound of the river. He prayed that the old woman was still there.

He crossed Mala Strana Square and walked toward where he knew the bridge was. Grayness swirled up from the river, stinging his nostrils and clinging to his eyelashes. Statues of saints, blackened with age, lined each side of Charles Bridge. They too seemed alive tonight, and he was suddenly seized with the desire to run through the gauntlet of their silent vigil. Ahead he could just make out the soft glimmer of votive candles. Their lights danced in shadows on the faces of Günther’s unearthly companions.

Have mercy on me! Mary, Mother of God! Have mercy!

Where was the old woman? Had she gone? Günther staggered forward, his fingers unconsciously clutching the package. Was he too late? Now the Moldau roared beneath the bridge. He stopped in confusion beneath the outstretched arms of Christ on a cross that proclaimed,
Holy, Holy, Holy God!
Günther cursed and strained to see through the fog.

Near the center of the bridge was the statue of St. John Nepomuk. Five stars graced his crown. His blackened sandstone features smiled gently into the light of the votive candles flickering beneath him.
Tacui
—“I was silent!” The saint had died for his silence. Günther wondered how he had agreed to this scheme and if it was too late for him to turn around and go back to his little government office in the ministry of passports.
Tacui!
Only the silent saint had witnessed him here. The old woman was gone. She had not waited for him to come.

He fingered the package in his pocket and pulled it out. One flip of his wrist, and the evidence would be lost forever in the dark waters of the Moldau. He held his hand poised as he debated the ending of this ill-fated adventure.
But the money!
They had promised him so much! Already he had been through the worst of it. All that was left was the exchange. But the old woman was not here!

He cursed quietly again, then crossed himself and asked forgiveness of the stone figures surrounding him. The Moldau stirred louder, and the bridge seemed to sway and rumble.

“Hello?” Günther called. “Is anyone here?”

The sharp click of boots sounded behind him. Günther whirled around.

The grinning face of Sporer emerged from the bridge tower. He held a small pistol in his right hand. “Yes, Günther. We are here.”

From the other end of the bridge, two more men appeared from the mist beyond Nepomuk. Their expressions were twisted with the anger of his betrayal. They moved slowly toward him, their boots louder than the rumbling river.

Günther flipped his wrist and the packet sailed over the stone railing, spinning end over end into the blackness. “Sporer, I was just—”

“That will do you no good.” Sporer’s voice carried the desolation of judgment in it. “You are either with us or against us, Günther.”

“I am with you!” Günther backed closer to the rail. “It was nothing!”

“I suppose we will not know that now, will we, Günther?” Sporer sneered. The light of the votive candles glared on the lenses of his glasses, concealing his humanity.

“Please, Sporer! It was the money! They promised me money!” Günther begged.

Sporer reached out a gloved hand.

Günther flinched as though he was about to be struck.

Sporer laughed. “Just the money?” He patted Günther on his shoulder.

Günther grinned in nervous relief. “I was going to toss it away. You saw. I was not going to go through with it.”

“Why?”

“I . . . I just was not going to.”

Sporer patted him again and smiled. There were no eyes in his face. Only the fire. The fire. “So maybe you should have gone through with it and split the money, eh, Günther?”

Günther’s face reflected confusion and fear. The thrust of the gun into his belly caused him to gasp. He had met the serpent at last.

The shot rang out loudly, and Günther’s twitching body flipped backward over the rail and fell with a splash into the swift current of the Moldau. The slap of boots against the stone signaled the retreat of the patriots who claimed Prague and all of Czechoslovakia for the Fatherland.

And St. John Nepomuk kept his vow of silence as the old woman shuffled out onto the bridge to wait.

***

Elisa slept soundly as the train finally crossed the frontier and arrived at the border of Germany. The shriek of brakes and the jarring of the sudden halt awakened her. She opened her eyes and brushed a strand of hair back, then gazed around the compartment in drowsy confusion. Where were Leah, Shimon, Rudy, and the rest? For a moment she tried to remember where the orchestra was playing next, and then the details came back to her. By now Leah was tucked into her own soft bed in Vienna.

The train was instantly invaded by uniformed men in jackboots who shouted orders and roused every sleepy passenger out onto the loading platform of the depot in Weimar.

“
Schnell! Schnell!
We do not have all day! Bring your baggage! Everything bring with you!
Schnell!
Hurry!”

The gray sky suited Elisa’s mood. Everything in Germany seemed gray: uniforms, towns. And since Hitler had come to power, rudeness was in vogue.

Elisa clutched Rudy’s violin in one hand and her small suitcase in the other. Orders were shouted for the men to form one line into the building and the women another. Elisa shivered with the cold. They were to be strip-searched, a common practice on the German side of the frontier. She hoped the rooms were heated. Slowly they shuffled forward. No one grumbled. Few dared to speak for fear of drawing the attention of the snarling, shouting young soldiers. Elisa envied the members of the orchestra and imagined how they had simply stepped off the train in Vienna and taken shared cabs to their flats.

A tall stoop-shouldered man stood just inside the doorway. He wore a heavy coat with a fur collar that gave him the appearance of a vulture as he scanned the passports and directed passengers to the appropriate table.

Elisa’s grip on the violin case caught his attention. He smiled slightly and then glanced briefly at the small red mark along Elisa’s jawline that identified her as a violinist. She held out her passport, and he waved her through without looking at it.

“We shall have to look through your baggage, of course, Fraülein.” He sounded apologetic.

“Of course,” Elisa agreed, silently wondering how the man would behave if he had looked at the passport of Elisa Lindheim, Jewess.

“A cold morning,
ja
?”

“Quite.”

“A glance through your baggage will be enough.” He nodded toward a screen with heaps of baggage piled around it. “Heinz!” he called, and a short harried-looking young soldier emerged. “Take these things for the Fraülein.” He gently, even politely, took Elisa’s bag and the violin case from her and handed them to the man. Then he smiled again and said to Elisa, “Just wait here. Only a moment and you may board again.”

Other passengers cast angry, fearful looks in her direction. They would assume now that she was some important member of the Reich—or at least related to someone in authority.

Seconds later the young man came out from behind the screen again and handed the bag and the violin case back to Elisa. “Quite in order.” He gave a slight bow and then raised his hand in salute. “Heil Hitler!” he said, as though wishing her a good morning.

She raised her hand slightly and replied, “Good day.” Then she looked at the tall vulturelike man beside her. “Am I finished?”

“More than enough, Fraülein. You may resume your place on the train.” He tipped his hat.

Elisa nodded, then left the others shivering on the platform. She had not experienced such politeness in Germany since 1933. She did not question her luck, even when three other passengers were arrested on first examination of their passports. Life in the Reich had become a strange paradox of brutality and obliging charm.

Elisa sat quietly in the empty train and placed the precious violin across her lap. She opened the case and lifted the lid, gazing for a long time at the soft golden patina of the Guarnerius. This morning she had happened to meet with a man who appreciated music and recognized her as a musician. Tomorrow, or next week, she could just as easily be searched by some ignorant Brownshirt who would smash the priceless instrument to pieces for the joy of his own power to do so. Elisa suddenly wished that Rudy had not left the instrument with her. She wished that she had loaned him the money and not taken the responsibility for carrying something so unique and irreplaceable right into the heart of Nazi Germany.

As the first of the passengers came glaring past her, she closed the case. She felt like apologizing, but she did not know how to explain such behavior. Within a matter of hours she had crossed a frontier and stepped through the looking glass into a bizarre world where the Red Queen wore a swastika on her arm and danced as she shouted, “Off with their heads!”

As the train jerked into motion at last, Elisa determined that she would not think about it anymore until she had to. Somewhere in the back of her mind remained the vague hope that she would not cross the border into Germany again until the looking-glass world became right once more.

4

Guests

The bull calf was five days old and confidently butting his patient mother as he demanded his warm, creamy supper. Franz dumped a measure of grain into the manger, then stood and watched as the baby slurped happily. He had been an early calf, and his arrival was really a surprise. When Franz and his father had purchased the heifer last spring, they had known she was pregnant but had not expected the birth until early March. As it turned out, the new calf and fresh supply of milk were a godsend. Two other cows had gone dry the week before, so the Wattenbarger supplies of salable milk and butter were short. Even after the calf had his share, the new cow produced nearly as much milk as the other two milk cows.

Franz liked her. She had a sweet disposition and probably would happily nurse two more orphan calves. He stroked her soft muzzle and considered purchasing an extra calf or two at the sale in March. “You are a lifesaver, you are. You bring us a few extra shillings for butter, and I’ll bring you more children.” The cow blinked solemnly. “Two, maybe three more to take care of, eh?” he added.

At the sound of his own words Franz paled and slapped his forehead with his palm.
“Dummkopf!”
he shouted to himself as he fumbled in the pocket of his coat and took out the crumpled envelope he had received from the priest five days earlier. “The guests! People to care for!” He hurried from the cow barn into his mother’s kitchen.

Marta stood over a steaming kettle of venison stew. Her hair was tucked beneath a white cap, and her apron bore traces of the day’s chore of bread-making. “Franz?” she asked, startled by his pale appearance as he waved the unopened letter beneath her nose. “What? Franz?”