Munich Signature

by Bodie Thoene

  The two other boats were also fishing vessels. One was a sixty-foot commercial craft and the other was somewhat smaller, used as a charter boat for tourists wishing to fish off the coast of Florida.

  The docks were crowded with photographers and reporters dressed like fishermen without the fishing gear. In the place of rods and tackle boxes were cameras and note pads and thermoses of coffee and bags of donuts and sandwiches. It was going to be a long trip—straight out to sea for eight hours. The sea was rough this morning, and the most hardy of newsmen were having second thoughts about bobbing around on the swells to get a story about a kid’s circumcision.

  But Bubbe Rosenfelt was undaunted. She had dressed warmly for the early-morning trip. She wore a sweater and riding skirt which Mr. Trump had purchased for her. On her feet were her most comfortable walking shoes, but she also carried the lovely blue dress she had worn to the docks of New York. This time there truly would be reason to rejoice. She would go below to the little cabin Mr. Trump set aside for her, and she would change into the dress. This was her first great-grandson, and she vowed she would not attend his berith milah in a riding skirt and old shoes. She also brought a hatbox containing a lovely round hat with gold and blue pheasant feathers and a veil—and of course she hadn’t forgotten a picnic basket filled with treats for the children. The only thing she did not have for the occasion was sponge cake and coffee for all the guests. But she was too excited to worry about anything so trivial.

  Mr. Trump, who looked more like a fisherman than any of the others, held her arm firmly as he helped her onto the boat. Her boat. The reporters were assigned to ride in the larger of the two vessels. They packed in like sardines, while Bubbe Rosenfelt was graciously seated inside the wood-paneled cabin and served coffee by a man in a white smock.

  Bubbe had ridden on small boats before in Hamburg on the lakes, but never on the ocean. The whole ship seemed to vibrate with the rumble of the smelly diesel engine. She smiled as Trump shouted for the reporters to get aboard the press ship if they were going. He is a good man, this Mr. Trump. Indeed, throughout the long journey to Miami he had assured her comfort and privacy on the one hand, while he barked at his reporters on the other.

  “It’s a long trip,” he said as the engine revved and the vessel idled away from the dock. “You can have breakfast now if you’d like, or go sleep awhile in your cabin, Mrs. Rosenfelt.”

  “So now it’s breakfast, Mr. Trump?” she smiled. He looked so very concerned that everything be right for her. “You have thought of everything.”

  “My way of saying thank you for the best supper I’ve eaten since my wife passed on in 1929.”

  “That’s a long time to be without supper, Mr. Trump,” Bubbe answered. “If I had known, I would have asked you over long before now. Of course, you would have had to travel to Hamburg, but—”

  The boat lurched forward and the engine settled into an even pulse.

  Trump frowned slightly. He had not told her about the disastrous broadcast from Evian last night. He had warned the newsmen not to bother her with questions about it on pain of being thrown to the sharks. Things were not going as he had hoped. They were not going well on other fronts either. He was determined, however, that Bubbe would be spared as much of the painful news as possible.

  “If I had known there was such good home cooking in Hamburg, I assure you I would have been there long before this. Now, breakfast, or sleep, or something else?”

  Bubbe raised her chin in thought. “More coffee, perhaps? And . . . do you know how to play canasta, Mr. Trump?”

  ***

  Still an hour from the proposed rendezvous point with the Darien a message clattered over the wireless.

  An agitated radioman handed the scrawled message to Trump in the galley.

  Darien Surrounded by Two Cuban Gunboats and One US Cutter Stop Cubans Deny Entry to Havana Stop American Commander Deming Demands Boarding Darien.

  With barely a moment to absorb this news, Trump was then presented with a second message.

  Darien Food Cargo Confiscated in Havana Stop Please Advise Immediately

  He felt the blood drain from his face.

  “Mr. Trump?” asked Bubbe Rosenfelt. “Are you all right? Is something wrong?”

  He frowned, suddenly furious and determined at once. “Party crashers, my dear. But they won’t stop us.” He ran a hand over his head. “The Cubans and the Coast Guard have sent a few overzealous officers to gum things up.” Now he sounded almost light. “We’ll be there soon. You should probably get dressed.”

  ***

  Anna walked as quickly as she could along the dark sidewalks of Prague. She felt blind as she passed her hand along the stone facades of the buildings for direction. More than once she touched a human form in the shadows; then she moved out to the edge of the sidewalk again to grope her way toward the Anglican church, where she had an urgent appointment with the rector.

  Czechoslovakia’s capital was the darkest city in Europe tonight, blacked out against the probability of an air raid.

  Streetcars crawled along, a faint blue glimmer replacing the usual headlight. Within most of the old houses there was no light at all.

  Gendarmes stood at a few of the downtown street corners to hold blue lanterns for those who, like Anna, had some urgent business pertaining to this last, terrible crisis. It was said that these blue lanterns were invisible from an altitude of more than a few hundred feet. Any German bombers or fighter planes attempting to make an unannounced call on the city of Prague would find themselves lost over the countryside beyond.

  The citizens of Prague obeyed the urgent edict of their government: total mobilization. President Beneš insisted that the country must be ready for any eventuality—especially now that the ultimatum of Hitler had been put in such plain terms. Now there was no question what he intended:

  “1. Withdrawal of the whole Czech armed forces from the Sudetenland, including police, gendarmes, customs officials and frontier guards from the area to be evacuated as designated by the Führer on a map attached. This entire area to be handed over to Germany on October 1.

  2. Evacuated territory to be presented to Germany in its present condition—farms, mines, industrial sights intact.

  3. The Czech government to discharge at once all Sudeten Germans serving in the military forces or the police anywhere in the state and allow them to return home.

  4. The Czech government to release all political prisoners of German race.

  5. The Czech government to extradite on demand any criminals who have fled Germany for Czechoslovakia.”

  This last point struck fear in Anna’s heart tonight. Theo was considered a criminal by the Nazi government. The thousands of Jews who had fled first from Germany and Austria and now from the Sudetenland were also criminals. Anna carried the precious documents wrapped in cloth and tucked inside her blouse.

  At last Theo had a passport. The others of the frightened multitudes had nothing. Most had fled without any sort of identification papers. For this reason Anna had promised to speak with the Anglican rector tonight. She carried with her a list of nearly a thousand names—Jewish names, names that were no doubt also on file on some Gestapo list.

  She quickened her pace as an army truck rumbled past. She still had a long way to walk and it had become impossible to get a taxi. All cabs had been requisitioned for transport of officers and men. There were no filling stations open, and wherever Anna passed small groups standing near an automobile tonight, there was talk about gasoline. How far would this much or that much take them?

  “The trains are packed. Everything on wheels is moving somewhere tonight—only who knows where?”

  International trains, however, were not crossing the borders. Passengers wishing to continue on from the border had to carry their baggage and cross on foot, in hopes that another train would pick them up.

  Most American, French, and British visitors had left over the course of the last week. Still, some hotels contain
ed small cliques of determined journalists who would cover the ominous coming of the dawn. Anna was glad Murphy was not among them. How grateful she was that he and Elisa were safe! How desperately she wished the same for Theo and Dieter and Wilhelm tonight!

  She stopped beside a gendarme who looked strangely cold in the blue light of his lantern.

  “Pardon,” she asked. “It is so dark, and I am afraid I have become lost.”

  “Madame,” came the sad reply, “who is not lost in Prague tonight?”

  “Can you point the way to the Anglican church for me?” she asked.

  He chuckled. “Do you see that streetcar?” He lifted a dark arm to point at the slowly moving blue headlight. “Wait until it passes, and then cross the street. There you will find the Anglican Cathedral.”

  Anna thanked him. She was too relieved to feel foolish as she ran across the street to the back entrance of the church. She felt her way around the rough stone wall to the corner, groping for a door she knew was there. She had walked through it a hundred times since she had come to Prague, but always it had been in the light of day.

  She stepped into a flower bed she had forgotten. Still, she felt the stones until at last she found the smoothly carved door. She half expected the door to be locked, but when she pulled on it, it opened easily. And inside was a glimmer of light. Candles shimmered a welcome to her, and the rector looked up from where he sat in the first pew and waved a greeting.

  “You are here!” Anna closed the door behind her.

  “As I promised.” The graying hair of the rector gleamed silver in the light. The reflection of the candles obscured his eyes, but he smiled, genuinely pleased to see Anna again, even under such circumstances.

  “I thought maybe you might have to leave suddenly, like the rest of the British.” She sat down wearily beside him.

  “Not yet.” He looked up at the ceiling where shadows danced on the beams. “I still have a tiny flock, Anna. Any word from Theo?”

  She shook her head. “Not since Tuesday. There has been no time, I am sure.”

  “Why haven’t you left yet, my dear lady?” the rector asked seriously.

  In reply, Anna pulled her list of one thousand names from her pocket. “I still have some flock to care for as well. I need your help. They need your help, Reverend Carwell.”

  Puzzled, he took the sheaf of papers and glanced through it. “Names?”

  Anna paused, uncertain how and where she could begin to explain. “Names. Yes, Jewish names with Jewish faces attached to them. If Theo were here, he would say they were relatives of Mary and Joseph and Jesus, fleeing for their lives from Herod.”

  With that beginning, Anna spent the next few hours explaining until, at last, she left the church carrying a candle of hope back to the little house on Mala Strana.

  ***

  The Cuban gunboats idled off the port and starboard sides of the Darien. The Coast Guard cutter remained moored to the portside bow.

  The vessel full of newsmen bobbed in the distance. There would be no slipups here. No refugee would dive over the side and swim to either of these two private ships.

  Trump stood scowling beside the captain of the small fishing boat. “Go on!” he ordered the ashen-faced man. “They would not dare blow Trump Publishing out of the water! One shot fired, and I’ll make that little Spanish-American war Hearst started look like a turkey shoot in Nantucket!”

  The captain nodded, not sure why he was obeying Mr. Trump. After all, there were cannons trained on his craft as he bumped against the Darien. Commander Deming of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter stood on the deck of the Darien with six armed men.

  Trump took the bullhorn in his hand and stepped out of the wheelhouse. “You are in violation of international law, Commander! These are international waters, and you have no right to board the vessel! No right to prevent Mrs. Rosenfelt from boarding the Darien!”

  Deming replied without benefit of the bullhorn. “We are under orders to prevent the exodus of these refugees onto American soil! We intend to obey those orders, newspapers or no newspapers!”

  The bulbs of cameras flashed and popped, capturing the confrontation.

  Bubbe Rosenfelt, now changed into her blue dress, held the basket of gifts on her arm. Her face was concealed by the veil of her hat. The expression of grief was only hinted at in the slight droop of her shoulders.

  “There is only one woman going to board the Darien, and you have no right to stop her, Commander,” the voice of Trump bellowed. “By all that is holy, sir, I offer you this warning: If Mrs. Rosenfelt is touched or detained in any way, if she is kept from seeing her family or boarding the Darien, you will pay for your mistake with your career!”

  The cutter commander did not reply for a long moment. His men stood ready behind him. But ready for what? Ready to shoot an old woman? Ready to arrest her for trying to visit her great-grandchildren and her granddaughter?

  Trump called down to Bubbe and a crew member who stood beside her. “Go on. They won’t stop you! They won’t lay one finger on you, Mrs. Rosenfelt! Maybe we don’t live in a free country anymore, but nobody owns the ocean.” He raised the bullhorn to his lips. “Get off the Darien, Commander! You and your men and the whole blasted State Department have no legal right to be up there. President Roosevelt couldn’t come onboard uninvited. You want to end up sailing a desk around Norfolk, pal, then just stay up there another minute.”

  The commander was beaten. Arrogant and angry, he climbed down the narrow iron steps on the side of the freighter. His men followed as the passengers of the Darien cheered with a deafening roar.

  The faces of Maria and Klaus, with Trudy, Katrina, Louise, and Gretchen, appeared high above at the rail to shout and wave at Bubbe. The veiled face was uncovered. Bubbe was radiant with joy and relief. Like a female Moses, her face shone with a great light. She was laughing, reaching out to grasp the metal rails even as the crew of the little boat tied it off to the Darien. She climbed easily up the steep steps. The nearness of her family swept the unsteadiness of age from her legs.

  “Bubbe! Bubbe!” shouted the children, jumping up and down.

  Bubbe called their names as she climbed. Above her the passengers still cheered as their voices bore her up. Arms reached out to pull her up—familiar arms. The loving arms of Maria and Klaus and Trudy and Katrina and Gretchen and Louis. Only Ada-Marie was not here.

  Bubbe did not let them see the momentary pain that knifed through her heart. She had not really believed it. Not until now. And then Klaus took the basket, and Maria lay the new little Holbein in her arms. She let her tears fall on him. Tears for joy and yet for loss. Tears for the realization that this reunion was only for one hour, and yet . . .

  Baby Israel squalled his hello. So much noise! So much commotion! Had he not yet learned the difference between happiness and grief? Maria clung to her, laying her head on Bubbe’s shoulder.

  “Oh, my kinderlach!” cried Bubbe, touching every face and then touching again. To lay a hand on each sunburned cheek, to feel the fine soft braids; to hold the baby—it was like breathing again after being underwater for a long time. She filled her lungs with them. My family! My family!

  The Cuban gunboats were forgotten. The arrogant American officer with his inhuman idea of duty to his country was forgotten. No one noticed the endless clicking of cameras or the flashes of light that blinked against the scarred hull of the freighter. This was the hour of joy; this hour was all they had hoped it would be.

  And so began the berith milah of little Israel. Carried in the arms of Bubbe Rosenfelt, he was placed before the rabbi of Nuremberg, and all the men onboard the Darien stood and cried with one voice: “Blessed is he that cometh!”

  Although Mr. Trump knew those words were meant for the infant Israel, he still could not help but smile when he heard them. Blessed is he that cometh . . .

  ***

  All noise and confusion subsided when Shimon stood before his orchestra of voices and began to conduct Beethove
n’s Fifth Symphony. The voices blended together, singing the instrumental parts with a precision no one, not even Shimon, truly expected. The Darien Symphony Orchestra, in perfect harmony and counterpoint, was fulfilling the rabbi’s prophecy of a miracle.

  But beyond the decks of the Darien, a greater miracle was happening. On the decks of the Cuban gunboats, armed men lowered their rifles to their sides and stood transfixed as the music swelled to a crescendo, enhanced by the percussion of the waves slapping against the hull of the ship. Coast Guard officers—even Commander Deming—stood still and listened. The press corps stopped their picture-taking and waited, awestruck, as the music reached its end.

  No one had ever heard anything like it—a boatload of refugees, wandering the seas in a coffin ship, produced the most beautiful music imaginable. This was no coffin—it was an opera house, a symphony hall, a place where life and love and creativity still flourished in the most adverse circumstances. And not a few among the listeners wondered who was truly alive—the occupants of the coffin ship, or those who refused them sanctuary. One thing was certain: No prince of Israel ever had such a circumcision ceremony.

  As the foreskin of the child was cut and the blessing recited, baby Israel howled; all the men onboard the Darien grimaced and the ladies closed their eyes. Maria felt faint. Klaus was grateful that his son would not remember this moment. Trudy, Gretchen, Katrina, and Louise felt very sorry for their baby brother, and very glad they had not been born sons! And if there was any reminder of grief on that day, it was the stained canvas prayer shawl worn by the rabbi of Nuremberg.

  The steady voice of the rabbi intoned the final blessing, “May the lad grow in vigor of mind and body to a love of the Torah, to the marriage canopy, and to a life of good works.” A single cup of wine was held up and blessed before the congregation and the name of Israel Burton Holbein was pronounced. Captain Burton flushed slightly at the surprise. He smiled and nodded as a drop of wine was placed on the baby’s lips.