Vienna Prelude

by Bodie Thoene

  “Yes. That has occurred to me. And Germany would lose a loyal son.”

  “Loyal to what? to whom?” The face of Canaris was intense. “To the laws? The laws change every day. If we are told that day is night and night day, then it must be so, or we will perish with those who are too proud to be liars.”

  “I am a liar,” Thomas said. “Black is white.” There was a sense of weary desperation in his voice that matched the pain in once-honorable Canaris.

  Canaris ran a hand through his silver hair. “No. Only men of truth admit to such a thing. There are many now among us who play at being liars. But it is only a game.” His eyes held those of Thomas. “Do you know why they gave me this report? This report of your meeting with Lindheim and his daughter?”

  “I can guess.”

  “Yes. They test my loyalty to them now. I am supposed to turn you over to them.”

  “I supposed as much.”

  “I have decided to give you another chance to prove your loyalty to the Fatherland, Thomas von Kleistmann. We are in need of good liars now, or I fear we will fall to the Father of Lies.”

  Thomas stared down at his hands and then back at the folder. He was afraid to hear the words of Canaris—afraid that he was to become one more sacrifice in the long line of Nazi sacrificial victims. “What more can I do to prove my loyalty? A hundred times I have denied my conscience—”

  “Yes. Your conscience. Yourself.” Canaris was not directing his words to Thomas any longer but had suddenly turned inward. He frowned and stared for an uncomfortably long time at the young man’s face. At last he spoke. “Perhaps it is time to find it again. A delicate balance. The truth. A lie. A man’s conscience.” He waved a hand distractedly in the air. “So. We must find a post for you. For Thomas von Kleistmann. Perhaps in Paris? Among the French? Do you speak French? Or perhaps in England? Do you fancy a trip across the Channel, Thomas?”

  “It doesn’t matter. One place is as good as another,” he said quietly.

  “Yes. The climate of Berlin cannot be healthful for you now; I am certain of that.” He dipped his pen in the brass inkwell on his desk and took out a sheet of stationery with his name on the letterhead. “The signature of Admiral Canaris is still worth something, although Himmler and the Gestapo would scratch it out if possible.” He paused midstroke and looked hard at Thomas. “This may yet be your death warrant.” His voice was almost sorrowful. “But if you stay it is a certainty that—”

  “You have not yet said what is required of me.”

  “I am not yet certain what is required of you. But when I know, you must swear by your duty—”

  “Duty to what? to whom?”

  “Your conscience. Only that.”

  ***

  Herschel Grynspan had fallen asleep with his head on the makeshift desk in his tiny garret bedroom. The pen had fallen from his hand, smearing the clean, white sheet of stationery beneath it. Beside his chair multiple scraps of wadded paper spoke of his effort to write the letter he had carried inside him for so many days.

  Dear Elisa, I am writing in the hope that you have gone away from this place and found . . . Dearest Elisa, how often I have thought about your kind words for me about the university, and . . . Dear Elisa . . .

  He dreamed of her now, as he had every night since he had seen her last. She was smiling, looking at him with the love and respect a woman has for her man. Together they stood on a corner of the Kudamm as endless parades of Nazi soldiers passed by. Boots crashed against the pavement as the men marched in perfect unity toward a wall of flame that reached to the sky. Row on row they disappeared into the fires as Elisa held Herschel’s hand in hers and smiled softly at the spectacle.

  It was not the crash of boots that woke Herschel from his sleep but the shouting of angry voices outside on the street.

  “Open! In the name of the Reich!” A short burst of automatic machine-gun fire accompanied the voices, followed by the sounds of splintering wood and hobnails crashing up the stairs. “Grynspan!” they cried, and Herschel knew at once who they were and why they had come.

  He gathered his scraps of paper and lit the corner of one sheet with the flame of the candle. Fire devoured his thoughts and words, and his dreams were consumed in the bewildered cries of his father and the weeping of his mother.

  “Where are they, Jew?”

  “I do not know! I cannot—”

  “Shut up! Jewish pig! Come with us! If we cannot have it from you easily, then we shall get it from you hard!”

  “But please! I only worked for the man. I am only small. A small man! Herr Lindheim would not open his mind to me!”

  “Then we will open your mind. With an axe!” A loud thump followed and then another scream from Herschel’s mother. They did not come up the garret stairs to search for him. Why?

  Herschel blew out the flame and rolled under his bed, trembling with terror. He pressed his ear against the floorboards and listened to every blow and every moan in the room below his.

  “Please,” his mother pleaded. “He is no one. You cannot find what you want here! Please!”

  Hot tears rolled from Herschel’s eyes and he wiped them away, afraid that they would drip through the boards and onto his father’s unfeeling tormentors. Minutes passed. The blows subsided.

  “If he knew, he would talk,” one hard voice said. “So he worked for the Jew Lindheim. Maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “Come on. We’re wasting time.” A final thump sounded, as if a boot was giving one last blow.

  Herschel winced as though he had taken the force of it himself. Why did they not come for him? Why? He hardly dared to breathe as their footsteps retreated down the dark stairway.

  His mother began to cry out, “Lazer! Lazer, my dearest! My husband! What have they done? Oh, what have they done to you?”

  ***

  The words of the Jewish physician fell heavily on the Grynspan household. “Lazer, you will certainly lose your left eye. Two ribs are fractured. You are lucky to be alive.”

  From his bed, Lazer Grynspan said weakly, “Is any man lucky to be alive in these days? Better we should not have been born, I think. Better.”

  Herschel stood at the foot of the bed, gripping the footboard until his knuckles turned white. His mother sat weeping beside her husband and whispering the same word over and over again. “Why? Why?”

  “Because they are animals, Mama,” Hershel said flatly. “Not men. They are like the Golem. Made of clay. Mindless to the bidding of their master.”

  “My dearest Lazer—so kind. Why would they do this?”

  The doctor gently bandaged the tailor’s head and left a tiny bottle of pills. “There is nothing else to do. Normally, of course, he would be at the hospital. But there is no opening for Jews, as you know.” He smiled bitterly, his face reflecting his own anger in the flickering light of the candle. “No place for Jewish doctors, either.”

  “Herschel.” The old tailor held out his hand to his son. “No place for tailors. Or sons of tailors.”

  The young man knelt and clasped his father’s hand gently. The knuckles were swollen from the sole of a Gestapo boot. “Yes, Papa, I am here.”

  “Then you must not be here!” The tailor’s voice took on a new strength. “You must go now . . . to Paris. Go. Stay with your Uncle Israel. He has a little shop. . . . ” He faltered. “The university. Remember . . . ”

  “You should be still now, Herr Grynspan,” the doctor said gruffly.

  “But, Herschel . . . he is our son. Our only son. He must leave,” the tailor pleaded.

  “Papa, I will not leave you.” Herschel was ashamed that he had not come to the aid of his father—that he had not run to fight the men who had beaten the old man so savagely. “I am here.”

  “Then you must not be here!” his father cried again. “To Paris! They must not harm you.” He groped for Herschel’s face and brushed his fingers lightly on the boy’s tears. “For your mother and me. Herschel, you must.”

 
; “Yes, Papa. Yes. Only rest now. Please,” Herschel begged. “Please get well.”

  ***

  Wood shavings, like tiny curled ribbons, fell onto Franz’s gray leather knickers and drifted onto the stone floor of the workshop. The delicate crèche was complete, but this morning Franz worked to finish one more angel. This was the angel Franz had seen smiling down at the newborn calf. The miracle of birth, the promise of new life, hope—these shone in the face of the small wooden carving. Franz was uncertain now if he had seen all of that in Elisa’s smile that night in the barn. Maybe he had heard it as she played her violin.

  Over the days and nights of watching her, his heart had gathered a composite picture of her soul, and now he recreated the image in wood. Perhaps, he thought, I will give it to her when we open small gifts before the mass on the eve of Weinachten. He brushed a shaving from the perfect little face and sat staring at it for a long time. Maybe it would be better if I keep this for myself. Elisa is leaving the day after Weinachten. Back to Vienna. I will carve something else for her and keep the angel for myself. He set the angel carefully on the shelf above his table, then turned on his stool as Frau Anna carefully descended the steep steps of the basement.

  Anna seemed even paler today than she had the day before. Each day she bore the agony of silence with her head high. But Elisa had told Franz that Anna was not sleeping well, and now the tension and worry were showing on her face.

  “Yes, Frau Anna?”

  She clung tightly to the banister as she spoke. “Your mother says . . . she says—” Anna touched her forehead and swayed a bit on the step.

  Franz jumped from his seat and bounded toward her, his arms extended to catch her fall. He was just below her when her knees buckled and she tumbled toward him. In one motion he gathered her up and climbed the steps into the Stube.

  “Mama!” he shouted. Not stopping, he took the main stairs two at a time. “Mama, come quick!”

  ***

  Tucked beneath the quilts in the big feather bed, Anna looked like a little girl. Elisa stood at the foot of the bed while Frau Marta sat beside Anna, stroking her hair and speaking quietly to her.

  “You must not bear all this alone, Anna,” Frau Marta gently chided. “For days you pretend that nothing is wrong. And we pretend like we do not know. Dear Anna, you are very valiant, but you must not bear your heartache alone.”

  Tears streamed from Anna’s eyes, dampening her hair and the pillow. Elisa fought to control her own emotions. Never had she seen her mother so broken—never. It tore her heart; at the same time she almost choked with rage against the powers that caused so much needless misery.

  “Oh, Marta,” Anna sighed, grateful for the farmwife’s comfort. “I just cannot think what to do. I cannot think what I must—”

  “Shhh.” Marta took her hand. “Your Theo would not like to see you sad or ill from grief. You must rest now and stay well for when he comes.”

  “But is he . . . coming? Who can know? Marta, you don’t know what it has been like for us.”

  Elisa saw a flash of anger in Marta’s eyes. No, she could not know, but she could imagine. “We will pray together for Theo, Anna. God sees when we do not see, ja?”

  Anna nodded. A frown furrowed her brow, and she said in a small helpless voice, “I do not want to go on without Theo. I can’t.”

  “Hush now with that kind of talk, Anna.” Marta was firm, and Elisa was grateful for the woman’s strength. Elisa had no words to comfort her mother, and to see the facade of strength crumble so completely was frightening. “You will go on, Anna. Not because you want to, but because you must. For your children. Theo’s children.”

  Anna squeezed her eyes shut. She shook her head in denial that she could go on living and breathing without Theo. And then, with a moan, she began to weep openly, stretching out her arms and clinging to Marta. “How? How can I live? I have never been without him! What if he doesn’t come? What if they don’t let him come? Oh, why isn’t he here, Marta? Theo. Theo!”

  Elisa turned her face away and bowed her head to brush away her own tears. Anna’s questions rang in her ears, and inwardly she shouted them back into the face of heaven: If You are God, why is this happening? Why? Why must we be torn apart? If You are God, then You are wicked and terrible and full of lies!

  The face of Thomas von Kleistmann rose up in her mind. He loved me. I know he did. How has this happened? There are no more dreams left for us. What will Mama do if Papa doesn’t come? And who will I love without Thomas? How can I ever love again?

  Marta did not try to answer Anna’s questions. Instead she crossed herself and prayed—for Theo, wherever he was, and for the ache in Anna’s heart to ease. Elisa thought how empty the prayers sounded. The words rattled around in the ancient rafters and then returned to them like dead leaves falling from the trees. No life. No shade of hope. Only a cold wind that blew into their very souls.

  For an instant Elisa was angry at Marta too. Why waste the effort of talking to a God who will not hear anyway? Then she turned and saw the grateful eyes of Anna gazing up at Marta.

  “Thank you,” Anna whispered. “Thank you. Yes. God can see Theo. And if He has taken him away, then—”

  Elisa covered her ears, unable to bear the thought. If Papa is dead, then what?

  “You must not stop hoping, Anna, until you know for certain the truth. But there is only one safe place to put our hope. False hope will make you weak and ill. Father Ulrich says we must look only to the Lord. There is our only safety.”

  As Marta spoke, Elisa wondered how much she knew about Otto’s secret life. Did Marta suspect that her own son had Nazi leanings? Would she still speak so confidently if she knew what kind of meetings he went to each night?

  Marta’s soft, guttural voice spoke with such tenderness that the words seemed almost like a tranquilizer. “Doesn’t the Heilige Schrift say: ‘Though a mother might forsake her children, God will not forsake us’? Yes, we love our children and God loves us even more than that. Find your comfort there. Life is so hard.” Her voice trailed off as though she remembered a crushing moment when hope seemed far away. Then she tucked the quilt tighter around Anna. “Yes. I know how hard. No answers. Nothing to do. Nothing to do but wait and pray and give our hope back to God, ja?”

  Anna nodded weakly. “I am so tired.”

  “Of course you are. You have not slept in all the time you have been here.” Marta blew out the lamp. “So sleep now. Rest. It is God’s good medicine.”

  Elisa stood over her mother as Marta moved toward the door. Anna did not open her eyes, but the corner of her mouth turned up slightly in a half smile. She had surrendered something as Marta had spoken. There was nothing else to do now but pray for a miracle . . . or for the strength to bear God’s silence.

  16

  Evening at the Embassy

  Timmons and Johnson each scanned through the pages of the Berlin daily newspapers in search of some mention of Theo Lindheim’s escape from the Adlon.

  “Not a word. Nuthin’.” Timmons tossed the newspaper onto Murphy’s cluttered floor.

  “What’d you think?” Johnson did not sound surprised. “You think the Gestapo is going to announce that some guy got out of here right under their noses and flew out of Tempelhof in a biplane during the worst storm in ten years? Fat chance. They don’t want anyone to know. Not until they’ve got him again.”

  “They don’t know about the biplane.” Murphy, stretched out on the sofa, had come to the same conclusion when nothing had showed up in print after a week.

  “Maybe he didn’t make it.” Timmons frowned and leaned back against the wall. “If that little plane made it over the mountains in that kind of storm, the Luftwaffe ought to let bygones be bygones and make him a field marshal!”

  “Yeah.” Johnson looked downcast. Every day the coterie of “Murphy’s Men,” including Amanda, had been hoping for a happy ending to their adventure. Tonight, Christmas Eve, would have been the perfect night to read the end o
f the story. “If he crashed up there, nobody’s gonna find his bones for a hundred years. The Alps and a biplane are not a good combination, if you know what I mean.”

  Murphy did not want to think about it anymore. He still had Theo Lindheim’s farewell letter to his family. He had hoped that there would be some indication that Theo had successfully run the gauntlet of Storm Troopers and lightning on the same night. “You know,” Murphy said in a sleepy voice, “Old Goebbels sure would have made use of the propaganda if Lindheim died in a plane wreck. Maybe no news is good news, in this case.”

  Timmons bit his lip and stared at the front page containing a transcript of Hitler’s holiday greetings to the people of the Reich. “I don’t think they know.” He looked up. “You know? I think we skunked ’em good, us limping around the block and going off in all directions. For all they know, Theo Lindheim might still be in here in the Adlon writing the news for American newspapers.” He crossed his arms as though the thought gave him a great deal of pleasure.

  “You’re right,” Johnson said. “But if the guy didn’t make it over the border—”

  Murphy frowned and eyed his leather briefcase on the table by the window. Theo’s letter was safely tucked inside a false bottom. It seemed to shout at Murphy: If Theo didn’t make it, his wife and kids will be heading back this way soon. You gotta tell them, Murphy. Vienna. Musikverein. Elisa Linder. Violin. They’ll have no way of knowing that he tried to escape unless you get word to them. If he’s not there by now, pal, he ain’t coming.

  “Oh, well,” Timmons said, as though he had been discussing the outcome of a World Series game, “Amanda told me that she and a bunch from the London Times have been invited to the British Embassy for a little reception. That new Ambassador Henderson has arrived, you know. Are you guys up for a little Christmas tea?”

  “And cookies,” Johnson added dourly. “Preferably American cookies, though.” He stroked the air in an hour-glass shape, making it clear what he wanted in his Christmas stocking. “I’m sick of these German dames and sick of these British dames.”