Munich Signature

by Bodie Thoene

  She climbed the steps and turned to scan the sea of heads. Finally she spotted Murphy and Charles. The child still clung ferociously to Murphy’s back pocket. Elisa could see that Murphy had his wallet out. He was paying the vendor! She hurried up the ramp. The ship’s officer, dressed in white uniform and gold braid, stood at the head of the ramp studying a clipboard of names. He looked up and smiled hesitantly at the beautiful and disheveled woman who approached.

  “Please!” Elisa cried. “You must delay just a moment longer! My husband and . . . our little boy! They are detained in the crowd! Please do not sail without them!” She could scarcely breathe, and her words tumbled out in a series of breathless, choppy phrases.

  “Your name, madame?” the ship’s officer asked coolly.

  “Elisa Murphy. My husband is John and the child Charles.” She searched his list for their names.

  She was so intent that she did not notice the two men who stepped up on either side of her until they touched her elbows. Their dark blue pin-striped suits and round derby hats seemed almost identical, like some sort of uniform.

  “Mrs. Murphy,” the man on her right said in a low voice, “you will come this way, please.”

  “But . . . my husband.”

  “Please, I assure you the ship will not sail without them.” He pulled her away from the head of the gangplank.

  “I would like to wait here for them—” Elisa attempted to pull free from their hands, but could not.

  “They will not miss the sailing.” The grim fellow was looking straight ahead as he spoke. He did not meet her questioning gaze.

  Elisa found herself propelled into a narrow corridor within a few steps of where she had boarded. Crates of food were stacked everywhere. This could not be the way to her cabin, and these men were not members of the ship’s company. The open hatch was closed behind them before Elisa could cry out her alarm.

  “Where are you taking me?” She struggled and the grip on her arms tightened painfully. “Why are you—”

  “This will do no good at all, Elisa.” A third man stooped to emerge from a hatch a few feet in front of her captors. He was very tall, dressed in similar fashion to the others except that he wore no hat and had a very thin mustache that followed the line of his upper lip. He was smiling. Pleased about something. He reached out to take the Guarnerius from Elisa’s aching arms. She opened her mouth to cry out, and a leather-gloved hand clamped over her face to muffle the scream.

  The three men chatted for a moment as though there were nothing at all unusual happening.

  “Frank managed to stop him all right?”

  “Like a charm. He and the boy are still down there. Stuck in the middle of everything. It will be another five minutes before they reach the foot of the ramp.”

  “Then we should hurry,” said the man holding Elisa’s violin. “Mr. Tedrick is waiting at the Port Authority.”

  Elisa struggled to free herself. She fought, but the strong arms of her captors held her fast. The gloved hand simply moved slightly to cut off her air until she forgot about escape and struggled only to breathe. They lifted her bodily between them now and carried her through a maze of steep stairs that twisted down through a center corridor of the ship. They moved quickly, almost a jog. There was no one else in the corridor, no one to question why they carried her down, why they held her.

  Within moments they reached the galley deck of the great liner. Elisa could hear the clink of dishes and the carefree mingling of voices and laughter of the crew. Again the hand clamped tightly over her mouth. No chance to scream as the leadman twisted a lever on a watertight door and swung it back. A burst of daylight blinded Elisa for an instant. Then, blinking at the light, she saw a tugboat moored just outside. The faint sounds of the band and cheering voices drifted in. They were on the opposite side of the ship from where she had boarded. On this side of the liner there was no one to see what they did with her.

  “Took you long enough!” called a fourth man in a suit from the deck of the tug. He was reaching up to grasp Elisa as they swung her out from the hull of the Queen Mary and dropped her down onto the deck. This maneuver took only a second; Elisa had a chance to gasp for breath and then attempt a scream before the fourth man covered her mouth with his hand. He jerked her arms back in a cruel hammerlock. Her eyes rolled back in pain as he shoved her into a cabin that reeked of fish and diesel fuel.

  The two strong men jumped from the Queen Mary onto the tug, and then the third man tossed down the Guarnerius and closed the door to the hold of the ocean liner with a clang. No one noticed as the tug pushed off from the hull of the giant liner and chugged easily across the harbor toward a deserted dock.

  ***

  The ship’s whistles were howling impatiently as Mrs. Rosenfelt showed her ticket to the officer at the top of the boarding ramp.

  “Mrs. Rosenfelt.” He topped his hat. “First-class passage, right through those double doors to the purser’s desk.”

  She nodded and, caught up in the press of the excited passengers, she was swept across the promenade deck and through the double doors marked Picadilly Circus. Stacks of steamer trunks were piled here and there in this main shipping square of the ship. Ladies in furs and the latest Paris fashions gawked in windows as stewards and porters scurried back and forth to make sure every passenger was in place in the proper room.

  The walls and pillars of this main square were covered with a veneer of bird’s-eye maple. Corridors branched off to dining rooms and smoking rooms and lounges in all directions. Broad stairs led down to the first-class rooms that stretched over one thousand feet from the bow to the stern of the great liner.

  In the midst of such opulence, a dark shadow fell on Bubbe Rosenfelt. She turned a slow circle to fill her eyes with laughing, excited people. How different this was than the dreadful little ship where Maria and Klaus and the children now huddled! If only they could have come with her! Fare for passage on the Queen included all her meals and afternoon teas. Since the Reich had forbidden that she take any assets out of Germany, she had bought herself this first-class ticket. She would stay in a cabin that might easily have held her entire family. Instead, their fare to sail on the Darien had cost three times more for each than one ticket onboard the Queen Mary. What sort of food would they have on such a decrepit vessel? she wondered. Were they warm? Did they have good beds to sleep in? Such questions made her grief come fresh and sharp to her.

  “May I help you, madame?” asked a steward in a crisp white uniform. He stepped from beside the purser’s desk.

  It took her a moment before she could answer. She struggled to pull the ticket from her reticule. “Room B-47.” She made the words come, although her throat resisted. “My baggage was loaded last night.”

  “Down the main stairway and then follow the port-side corridor.”

  His explanation was interrupted by a tall young man with a small blond boy in tow. “I . . . I’ve lost my wife somewhere in all this.” The man seemed flustered and unhappy.

  “Probably in your room.” The porter glanced at his ticket. “Ah, yes. You have a suite, I see. Have a look there first and then try the shops. Ladies and the shops, you know. Not the first lost wife we’ve had onboard.”

  “Could you page her?”

  The steward swept his hand across the panorama of confusion. “Perhaps when we are underway.”

  Mrs. Rosenfelt stepped away from the unhappy man. He would no doubt find his wife. She, on the other hand, could only pray that Maria and her family were safe wherever they might be. It would have been such a simple matter to bring them along if it were not for the dreadful American visa restrictions. What an occasion of joy this Atlantic crossing might have been then!

  She descended the grand staircase and stopped to glance back at the young husband and his boy. Something about the child seemed familiar . . . something. It did not matter. Perhaps she was simply looking at him because he was a child, like the great-grandchildren she had been forced to send on the D
arien. The girls would have loved such a place! What fun they would have had together! Perhaps this boy would have been a playmate.

  Bubbe Rosenfelt blinked back tears as she searched for her cabin along the corridor. Crowded with other passengers, the narrow hallway was nevertheless lonely. Three thousand people were aboard the liner, but all Bubbe could think about was the candy in the bottom of her reticule, and the little girls who were not here to share it.

  15

  The Sacrifice

  Murphy sat on the edge of the bed in their luxurious stateroom. Charles stood on a chair to look out the porthole as the last glimpse of England slid from view.

  All the luggage had been promptly delivered to the room. Elisa’s steamer trunk, a small brocade carryall, and two hat boxes were stacked neatly among the smaller bags belonging to Charles and Murphy. But where was Elisa?

  Murphy and Charles had taken a turn around the promenade deck of the enormous vessel, hoping to find her. That deck was only one of several, however, and after forty-five minutes of wandering around, Murphy had decided that he could spend the entire voyage looking for her and she could quite easily be looking for him and they might never find each other. The great Queen was touted as a floating city. It was that, indeed. There was only one way to find Elisa—to return to their stateroom and wait for her to wander in like a lost pup.

  They had waited here for an hour and fifteen minutes already and still Elisa had not showed up. Was she shopping? Sipping coffee in one of the numerous cafés? Sending a cable back to her parents in Prague?

  Murphy stood suddenly and glared at the door. He was angry and worried. First more angry than worried, then more worried than angry. The ship’s officer was quite certain she had checked in—quite. But then, he explained, he had seen hundreds of faces, after all.

  “Charles, I’m going out again,” Murphy said gruffly. “To the telegraph office. You wait here and when she comes in, don’t let her go anywhere, will you?”

  Charles gave him the okay sign, then turned back to the porthole as the fog enveloped the last point of land. Murphy donned his trench coat and slipped out into the cherrywood-paneled corridor. The stateroom was near the promenade deck, and the radio room was three decks below that and forward about half a city block.

  He made his way to the lift, then changed his mind when he saw a dozen smiling couples standing in front of it. He took the stairs instead, clattering downward into the bowels of the ship.

  Signs were placed at convenient intervals for any intrepid travelers who wished to explore the vast labyrinth of the Queen’s insides. Each landing displayed a map of that particular deck showing cabin placement and shops and restaurants. It was no wonder Murphy had not been able to locate his wayward wife, he thought as he scanned the map for the telegraph office.

  The rumbling of the great Queen seemed much louder three flights down. Murphy pushed through the door into a corridor that was narrower than that of the upper-deck staterooms. Third-class cabins. No portholes. Murphy felt a bit more at home down here. Every Atlantic crossing he had made had been in third-class accommodations. Students and working stiffs and old ladies who liked shuffleboard—those were the standard fare down here.

  He passed each of those types in turn; then the corridor branched off into a corridor lined with offices. Ship’s steward. Head chef. And then, Radio Room.

  Murphy leaned against the counter and pulled a blank tablet toward himself as the radio operator finished taking a message. It was a moment before the young man looked up. He was clear-eyed and apple-cheeked and somehow reminded Murphy of the nursery rhyme “Bobby Shafto’s Gone to Sea.”

  “May I help you, sir?” He had the accent of English aristocracy, although he wore the simple uniform of a seaman.

  “I’m looking for my wife.” Murphy was suddenly embarrassed. Obviously Elisa was not here. “We got separated on the docks, and I thought maybe . . . she had come down here to send a wire.”

  “A wire, sir?” The young man eyed him strangely.

  “Not to me—I’m here. But maybe she sent a wire to—”

  “What’s her name, sir?” He thumbed though a sheaf of yellow telegraph forms. “These are all the wires to go out.”

  “Elisa Murphy.” Murphy craned his neck to see.

  The young man straightened the stack and laid it aside somewhat self-consciously. He reached for the pad he had just been working on. “Then you will be John Murphy?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Murphy felt instant relief. So. She had sent a wire to her folks. There must have been quite a line holding her up.

  The young man looked at him almost fearfully. “John Murphy?” He held up a single sheet by the corner.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” Whatever relief Murphy felt vanished immediately as the scrawled message was laid before him.

  “A wire for you, sir.” Then he added, “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Murphy groaned aloud.

  Fainted in the crowd Stop Missed Sailing Stop Will contact in New York Stop Love Elisa

  He held the note a moment, then crumpled it in his fist and shoved it into his pocket.

  “So sorry, sir,” the young man said as Murphy stormed from the office.

  ***

  The room was clean, at least. Stripped clean, except for an iron cot with a thin mattress covered by one sheet and a blanket. There were no toilet facilities. An empty tin bucket stood in one corner and a bucket filled with water in the other. Brick walls rose to a windowless height of fourteen feet, and near the ceiling one dingy transom window was ajar to give light and ventilation. This was better at least than a Gestapo prison. No one had cursed her or forced her to strip. But why . . . why?

  Elisa had been left alone for three hours to wonder. Who were these men? Why had they kidnapped her? Had Murphy and Charles made it aboard ship, or were they also somewhere in Southampton? Again and again she ran through every scrap of conversation; every nuance of voice and appearance.

  “Frank managed to stop him?”

  “Like a charm.”

  “Mr. Tedrick . . . Port Authority.”

  She had been deliberately separated from Murphy. If her captors had thought that far, they had said only what they wanted her to hear. Port Authority . . . Mr. Tedrick. She assumed that this dreadful little room was somehow part of the port authority offices, but she had not seen this Mr. Tedrick whom they said was waiting.

  There was only one thing she was sure of as the sunlight dimmed to twilight. She had missed the voyage. She was alone. Without answers, and without Murphy.

  ***

  Anna climbed from bed and pulled the edge of the shade back to look out onto the cobblestone streets of Prague. Below her passed the endless stream of refugees who were pouring into the city from the Sudetenland. Czechs and Jews and Austrian Germans who had escaped the first onslaught after the fall of Austria now congregated in penniless misery on the sidewalks and in the square beyond. She could see the ragged women with their children, making the best of it—at least they were still alive. Husbands worked to erect shelters from cardboard and packing crates and old tin. They had come here with some hope that the Nazi revolt in their own territory would be stopped—stopped by men like Theo, Wilhelm, Dieter.

  Anna let the shade fall back, covering the sight. She put a hand to her face in a moment of realization. She bowed her head. The words came clearly to her as if Christ himself stood in the room. “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”

  Anna gasped. She looked up, expecting to see the one who had just spoken. The room was still empty, yet now Anna hurried to dress. There were so many! She measured each room of the house with her eyes as she gauged how many could comfortably share the space. One family in each room. Eigh
t families. We will organize a staff for cooking right here and set up a soup kitchen for as many as we can.

  Within days, Anna had filled her house with grateful mothers and bevies of children. By the end of the week, two thousand from the square came twice a day for soup and bread, offered in the name of Jesus.

  “The Lord bless you.” Soup was ladled into cups.

  “Jesus is with us.” The bread was given.

  “God has not forgotten.” Milk to the children. Coffee for the adults.

  Twice a week the grand piano was moved outside and Anna played joyfully for those who packed the street from one side to the other.

  From this act of kindness, other Christians around Prague banded together until a dozen soup kitchens had sprung up and the multitudes were fed.

  ***

  There was no one onboard the Darien who did not have a story to tell. Each had arrived at this desperate moment by a different route. Some had paid larger bribes and some smaller. Some had been among the first five hundred to purchase passage; others had come later through some miracle.

  These different tales sparked a subtle resentment among the refugees. Those who had paid larger bribes resented those who had paid less. Those who had bought passage among the first five hundred resented those who had been squeezed in after the limit of five hundred had been passed.

  “Why should we be sleeping on the deck? We were promised a cot!”

  “Everything we owned to purchase passage, and they only paid . . .”

  “We were the first, and now we are forced to give up our comfort so more can come!”

  “Will the food hold out?”

  “We were told . . .”

  “There would have been enough for five hundred! But this!”