Munich Signature

by Bodie Thoene

  Shimon cleared his throat. He was uncertain of his voice. It seemed like such a long time since he had spoken to a child that he was not sure his vocal cords would work for the occasion. “Ada-Marie is a very pretty name,” he croaked. He did not reply to her question about the pain, which was still intense.

  The other girls then crowded forward. “And I am Gretchen.”

  “I am Katrina.”

  “My name is Louise, and she is Trudy.” Louise jerked a thumb at Trudy. “Trudy is the oldest, which is why she gets to hold the flowers.”

  “But we all made one for you!” Gretchen said.

  “Even me!” Little Ada-Marie touched a dilapidated flower with a pudgy finger.

  “Mama helped Ada-Marie,” Louise explained with an air of authority. “But Trudy thought of the idea.”

  At that, Trudy blushed and stepped forward with the rest to present the bouquet to the invalid stranger. “We hope you get better soon,” she whispered, her blush growing deeper as he took the bottle in his massive hand and held it on the pillow.

  “Yes!” Ada-Marie clapped her hands. “We are glad you did not die like the grown-ups said—”

  A hard nudge from Gretchen silenced the little one. “Ada-Marie! Don’t say such things!”

  “Don’t push, or I will tell Mama!”

  From behind the little chorus the doctor chided, “That is enough, girls. We must let our patient rest.”

  Shimon looked pained. He did not want them to go. It had been so long . . . too long . . . since he head heard small voices utter kind words to him. “Please,” he gasped, “just a minute more. Stay.” It was ridiculous, he knew, but there were tears in his eyes. He blinked them away and tried to smile. Flowers. Paper lilies made by children. Had he ever seen anything so beautiful before?

  The doctor did not object to the request. The girls moved closer. The patient liked their gift. He liked them. It was very nice.

  “What is your name?” Ada-Marie’s braids shone in the light. Her eyes were blue like flowers blooming at Schönbrunn Palace. Bouquets of living flowers. Sweet-smelling skin. Pink cheeks. So very beautiful.

  Shimon felt overcome by such beauty. He fought hard to control his emotions, recalling the harsh voices of guards shrieking out his identification number. “You are not human; you are an animal, a number for the Reich, for the service of the Aryan!”

  “My name is Shimon,” he answered. “My name is Shimon Feldstein. And I think these are the prettiest flowers I have ever . . . ” His voice faltered. He closed his eyes.

  Trudy whispered, “We will come back and visit you if you like.”

  Eyes still closed, Shimon nodded. The effort caused him to wince with pain.

  “Maybe tomorrow, girls.” The doctor’s voice was kind, and Shimon heard shoes shuffle out of the infirmary.

  “Yes, please,” Shimon called weakly. Then he opened his eyes to stare at the bouquet of white flowers.

  13

  Jeremiah’s Mantle

  It was a short walk from where the Savoy Hotel overlooked the murky Thames to where Fleet Street sloped up Ludgate Hill toward the mighty St. Paul’s Cathedral. A cloud of pigeons rose up from the tower as the bells rang the hour of nine that morning.

  Murphy stopped and pointed upward, directing the attention of Charles to the birds. He put his arm around the boy’s thin shoulders in a fatherly gesture that made Elisa marvel at the tenderness of the man she had married. She flushed with emotion and breathed a prayer of thanks for John Murphy.

  “There was a terrible fire here in London right after the plague, you see,” Murphy explained in German. “I think it was in 1666. And it burned so hot that the lead roof of St. Paul’s melted and ran down the street.” He pulled Charles close to the curb and searched the cobblestones until he spotted traces of that molten stream. “Look here, Charles!” he exclaimed with an excitement that made him seem like a boy himself. “The very stuff from the roof of St. Paul’s!”

  Charles shook his head in wonder, then looked from the leaded cobbles to where the cathedral now stood. He wanted Murphy to tell him more. Had he ever heard such stories or felt such enjoyment simply walking up a street? Never in his young life had he taken a walk without looking fearfully over his shoulder. Now he scanned up and down and everywhere to devour the sights and sounds of London.

  Murphy needed no encouragement. “Just think of all the kings and carriages that have ridden over this street since then! And this is Fleet Street.” He pointed up toward the building that housed the venerable Times. “Even before the great fire, people were turning out books and pamphlets here. Publishing. Writing—”

  Charles pointed at Murphy proudly.

  “Yes, like me,” Murphy laughed. “Booksellers still sell used books right up there in an open-air market.” He pointed behind them to where the pigeons swirled back to their roosts in St. Paul’s.

  Elisa let her eyes linger on the place. She thought of her father’s volume of Faust and wondered if the French bookseller Le Morthomme had a counterpart here in the London booksellers’ market. Such a thought was an unpleasant interruption of the sense of peace she had felt a moment before. She shook her head as if to clear it from any questions that had slipped in. She was free from all that now. It had nothing to do with her life. Nothing to do with the reason they had come to Fleet Street.

  “How much farther to the office?” she asked. Somehow even that was an intrusion. After all, they were going to the INS office to retrieve the scrapbook that had been kept by Charles’s aunt. In the book was every gruesome reminder of what the child had been through.

  Murphy looked pained. For a moment he had almost forgotten why they were here. “Not far,” he said. “Not far enough.” He raised an eyebrow and jerked his head toward the office displaying the INS logo. Then he added, “Maybe you and Charles should walk on up to St. Paul’s, huh? Larry Strickland and the rest of the staff know all about this.” He cleared his throat. He was not certain that it was wise to take Charles Kronenberger into a hive of journalists familiar with the whole story.

  “We can feed the pigeons.” Elisa smiled brightly, but Charles studied her with eyes that seemed to understand the situation in spite of the grown-up attempt to hide it. “Would you like that?” she asked.

  Charles frowned slightly. He would have rather seen the inside of a Fleet Street office. Especially one where his hero, John Murphy, had worked. Hadn’t the father of Louis and Charles Kronenberger been a journalist, too? There was something warming in the familiarity of this place. His father had also worked on a big newspaper in Hamburg. Charles remembered the busy clack of typewriters and telephones. He wanted to go with Murphy, but Elisa already grasped his hand and tugged him along after her. He peered back over his shoulder as Murphy waited and then jaywalked across Fleet Street to the office.

  Charles pulled back against her hand and stalled to watch the tall, lanky American as he tugged the brim of his hat and strode into the office. A red omnibus zoomed by and the wind from it ruffled the blue cotton scarf that concealed Charles’s mouth. He put his hand up to it, then lowered his head. Tears stung his eyes at the thought that Murphy had not wanted him along. He had not wanted his friends to meet him. Someday his mouth would be whole, and Murphy would not feel ashamed to take him into the office.

  Somehow Elisa read his thoughts instantly in his eyes. She gathered him against her in a quick hug. “That is not it at all,” she said in quiet German. “You are a celebrity, you see, Charles. A famous person because you got away from the bad men in Germany. Everyone will ask too many questions of you, and Murphy does not want you to feel bad. That is all.”

  His blue eyes brightened at her explanation. A single nod of acceptance answered her, and then he pulled her hand as if it were his idea to guide her up toward St. Paul’s.

  Piles of old books rested on makeshift tables in the stalls of a hundred booksellers. Tourists browsed and bickered over prices of rare volumes as Elisa and Charles wandered down row
after row. Elisa paused at one table reserved exclusively for volumes of children’s books. Thumbing through a book of nursery rhymes with Charles, she came upon the poem about London Bridge that the boatman had sung and then explained so gruesomely. The book displayed nothing so grim as that in its pictures, so she purchased it and presented it to Charles with a slight bow. This was much more fun than feeding pigeons.

  They passed slowly on to the next table. It was filled with books stacked behind a cardboard sign that read: Fine Rare Volumes. Elisa considered the sign and then searched the spines of old leather-bound books as she thought of her father’s collection in Berlin. What happened to those books? she wondered. Had they been burned in the great bonfires that had cremated human thought in Germany?

  She raised her head to look out over the bookstalls. Everywhere men and women flipped through pages, skimming the words of Shakespeare, Milton, Marlowe—writers who had walked here when Fleet Street had been young. She glanced back to the heap in front of them and spotted the gold lettering on a black leather spine. Holy Bible. She picked up the book with a sense of relief. So. It was still for sale in England. All Bibles had been burned in Germany.

  “How much?” she asked the wizened old woman who ran the stall.

  “Tuppence, dearie.” She cackled her answer. “Cheap enough.”

  Elisa laid the copper coin on the table and took the precious book in her arms. She embraced it like one who embraces an old friend met in a faraway land. She smiled and said to Charles. “My first English Bible. A sensible thing to have since we are going to America.” Aware that her countrymen in Germany were being sent to their deaths for possession of a Bible, she marveled at the ease with which she had purchased something so valuable. Suddenly she wanted to tell Murphy about it, wanted to show him and share her wonder at the event.

  She turned in search of him. He was taller than almost everyone, and she was certain she would spot him easily among the crowd with bent heads and downcast eyes. Charles, clutching his book of rhymes, also searched the throngs of people. It had been nearly thirty minutes since they had left Murphy. Surely it was time for him to finish his business and join them again.

  “Maybe we should go to the steps—” Elisa suddenly fell silent. Across the bowed heads of hundreds of browsers she saw a man staring unmistakably at her. He was three stalls away. His hand was on a book as though he were thumbing through it, but from beneath the brim of his hat he followed Elisa’s every move. He smiled slightly, not minding that she noticed his interest.

  Was he simply a man noticing a pretty woman in the book market? She felt the blood drain from her face. She looked past him, hoping for the arrival of Murphy. “Come on, Charles,” she whispered.

  Pulling Charles along, she moved quickly through the stalls as she made her way back toward the stone steps of the cathedral. The bell clanged out the half hour, and the pigeons rose like smoke again. Their shadow passed above them. Elisa looked behind her, expecting to see the man. Black fedora. Pin-striped suit. Eyes that followed her and questioned her.

  Fear reflected on her face, and Charles clung tightly to her hand. She did not see the man who had watched her. He had not followed. She stopped and stood panting at the edge of the book market. Now her eyes searched the stalls for some sign of the man. He was gone—or perhaps his eyes had simply returned to some book he had been scanning.

  Charles tugged impatiently on her arm and pointed up the steps to where Murphy stood with a bag of bread crumbs. When he smiled and waved, Elisa felt foolish. It was nothing. Nothing at all. A curious look from a man. Nothing.

  “Out spending all my hard-earned money?” Murphy called. His hat was shoved back on his head and he held a large paper-wrapped package beneath his arm. “Just like a woman. Out shopping when us fellas would rather be hunting birds, huh?”

  ***

  It was easy for Charles to love the city of London. Much about it reminded him of Hamburg where he and Louis had been born. Was it the broad, murky Thames River, filled with boats like the Elbe River had been? The London Savoy Hotel seemed much like the hotel where Mommy and Father had once taken Charles to meet the committee of pastors and laymen who discussed his case. The Atlantic Hotel in Hamburg had been a wondrous place, indeed. Father had carried him and Louis into the plush lobby, one boy in each strong arm. He had carried them past potted palms and high-backed red velvet settees where later the boys had played hide-and-seek. Important matters had been discussed there at the Atlantic, and Father had left the place hopeful. Nothing came of that hope, but still Charles had happy memories of that magic day in Hamburg. Such memories made him ache for Louis and Mommy and Father once again. He stood between Elisa and Murphy in the lobby of the London Savoy and imagined that Louis was hiding somewhere behind a chair or a green fern or around the corner.

  Elisa’s voice carried disappointment as she spoke, and suddenly Charles listened to her again. “But Murphy, must you?”

  “I won’t be gone more than a few hours. A guy can’t refuse to have tea with Winston Churchill, can he?”

  “But today—our afternoon. What about the movies?”

  Charles raised his eyebrows in alarm. Murphy had promised to take him to a real American double-feature movie. Two movies, Murphy had explained. Wonderful films called The Thin Man and something else that Charles could not remember. The film stars were very famous and the movie showed New York and San Francisco. Murphy had said the films would give them an idea of where they were going.

  Charles tugged indignantly on Murphy’s sleeve. “Huh?” Charles asked. This was an American word Murphy told him meant “I don’t understand.” Charles liked the word because he could say it perfectly, just like Murphy said it. “Huh?” Charles asked again.

  “I have to go have a conversation with a very important fellow, you see.” Murphy explained gently to Charles. “So I am counting on you to take Elisa to the movies.” He pressed a bill into the child’s hand, then whispered to Elisa, “I went to see the show twice just so I could think about you.”

  “Me?”

  “You and Myrna Loy have so much in common.”

  “If you think flattery will make me feel less abandoned—”

  “I’m not talking about your looks.” He grinned. “I’m talking about your money!” He stepped back and held up the paperbound scrapbook as she playfully tapped his head with her handbag.

  “Go on then,” she said with mock aloofness. “And just for that, I won’t tell you I’ll miss you.”

  “Well, I’ll miss you.” He brushed his lips against her cheek and then kissed her lightly on the mouth. She was smiling and for a moment, Charles wondered if Murphy might change his mind and stay with them after all.

  “Charles and I will have a . . . splendid time.”

  “A swell time,” Murphy corrected with a wink. Then he placed the package in her hands. “I’ll be back whether you want me or not.” With that, he mussed Charles’s hair and strode out of the lobby.

  Charles felt disappointed. Elisa gazed after Murphy and then sighed before she remembered that Charles was beside her. “A swell time,” she repeated. “Well, Charles, shall we go see how the modern American woman keeps her husband nearby?” She touched his cheek and smiled at him. He thought he had never seen such blue eyes. He would marry her if Murphy decided to stay away. And he would take her to American movies every day.

  “Uh-huh,” Charles answered, taking the hand of his lady and leading her toward the revolving door at the far end of the lobby.

  ***

  The trees and flowers of Winston Churchill’s estate were in full bloom. The stately brick mansion of Chartwell seemed warm and homey amid the blossoming shrubs and the bright afternoon sunlight. Murphy felt none of the gloom he had experienced during his last wintertime visit to Churchill’s home.

  A plump, matronly housekeeper directed him from the patio down a meandering path to where the great man sat in front of a half-finished canvas. Dabbing paintbrush on his palette, C
hurchill glanced at Murphy, growled a greeting, and then put the finishing touches on his painting.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Murphy.” He nodded toward the canvas. “Well, what do you think of my work?”

  “Very nice,” Murphy feigned admiration, even though the canvas was not even half complete. “So far, very nice.”

  Churchill squinted at the work and then sat back with a disapproving grunt. “Not the full picture, however, eh, Mr. Murphy?” Now Churchill turned his gaze on Murphy. “Only half the story, as it were.” He tossed the brush into a tin can filled with linseed oil and a dozen other brushes. Wiping his hands on a paint-spattered smock, Churchill then extended a hand to Murphy in greeting.

  “Even unfinished it is quite nice.” Murphy sat down on the stone bench beside Churchill.

  “Rubbish!” Churchill snorted. “I have a studio full of them. They are too worthless to sell and too dear to part with. An addiction . . . that’s what painting is. Steadies my nerves. Like a good cigar.” As if to make the point, Churchill pulled two cigars from his smock pocket and offered one to Murphy, who declined with an amused shake of his head. Churchill shrugged and replaced the gift. “A dreadful habit.” He struck a match on the sole of his Wellington and puffed on the stogie with satisfaction. “And a great pleasure. Somewhat annoying to my secretary, however. I have had to give up my smokes in the car. It makes her quite ill to take dictation and breathe cigar smoke while we careen along the country roads. She turns the very color of green tobacco.”

  Murphy laughed at the story but was quite certain that he also would turn green in a closed automobile of such reeking smoke. “I tried smoking once. I was nine, and I set the haystack in the barn on fire. Nearly burned the place down, too. My dad says that the only good use of a cigar is to keep mosquitoes away in the outhouse.”

  Churchill chuckled. “We’ve had indoor plumbing for some time now, but I never got over my little habit all the same.” He puffed in silence; then the amusement faded from his eyes. He looked toward his painting again. “Not the full picture,” he muttered. Then with a sigh he stood and paced a few steps to the edge of the pond before turning to face Murphy. “There is a good deal more to our picture than anyone is daring to show, Mr. Murphy. That is why I have asked you to come here on such short notice.”