Vienna Prelude

by Bodie Thoene

  “Elisa! Wake up!” Leah shook her roughly. “Please! Elisa!”

  Groggy and confused, Elisa opened her eyes and pulled herself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “Leah, how did you . . . what time is it?”

  Leah scraped a chair across the floor to sit down directly across from Elisa. “I let myself in. It is almost two.”

  “In the morning? Why aren’t you home in bed?”

  Leah looked at her disheveled friend. “You’re still dressed. You went to bed in your shoes.”

  “I . . . I don’t feel well.”

  Suddenly Leah embraced her and said in a tearful voice, “I’m so glad you’re all right. So glad. They said you had shown up during the concert, and then left. I thought maybe you had heard about Rudy!” She broke down. Her shoulders shook with uncontrollable sobs.

  “Rudy? Rudy?” Her own troubles seemed to take on less significance. “What? What happened, Leah? Is he hurt? Dead? What has happened?” She remembered the clear anger in the voice of the manager. Rudy had not shown up for his meeting with the maestro. He had not made it to the performance.

  Leah’s chin trembled. She shook her head in disbelief at the horror of the night. “After the performance, the police came—dozen of Shupos backstage. They would not let any of us go home. They asked questions and questions about Rudy!” She started to break down again but caught herself. “They wanted to know if we had seen him. What had been his state of mind. They even detained the maestro, Elisa, as though we were criminals! And then they told us”—she covered her face with her hands—“oh, Elisa! So terrible! The man who shot at Rudy that night at the concert—he was the brother of Irmgard Schüler!”

  Elisa recognized the name. Irmgard Schüler was the woman Rudy had been seeing for over a year. Her husband, a leader in the Austrian Nazi Party, had been imprisoned for his activities against the Schuschnigg Catholic government and Austria. He had been released, but even then, Rudy had continued to see this woman. So. Her brother tried to kill Rudy. “So much for his motive,” Elisa said quietly, placing a hand on Leah’s arm.

  “The man killed himself. In prison, Elisa! Only this morning. He left a horrible note about the decadence of the Jews. How Rudy had destroyed the life of his sister and the honor of his family!”

  “Rudy is not a good representative of morality, is he?”

  Leah’s eyes blazed in fierce defense of Rudy. “You don’t know! You don’t know anything about him at all! He and Irmgard Schüler were never lovers. They were friends, and . . . she helped!”

  “Helped? Helped what?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Leah moaned miserably. “She is dead now. They found her murdered tonight in her flat. Terrible. Horrible . . . horrible! And they are saying Rudy did it! Elisa, they say Rudy murdered her!” She sobbed again, harder now, making no effort to control her tears.

  Elisa could not speak. She simply stared at Leah in disbelief. Gentle, silly Rudy? How could he murder someone? He could barely stand to step on a spider. He grew faint if he nicked himself shaving. “Surely they have made a mistake.”

  Leah looked at her with teary eyes. “No mistake. They say he left proof all over the apartment. Oh, Elisa! They say he cut her throat! It cannot be! This is too terrible! They said she tried to break off with him after her brother killed himself, but Rudy wouldn’t let her! And now they are looking for him! All over the city! He has simply vanished. Could this be happening? Our Rudy?”

  Elisa got up stiffly and put the kettle on to boil. Her head ached, and she could not think. “Do you think he could have done it?”

  “Never!” Leah cried, following her into the kitchen. “Another Nazi trick. Rudy says the government is full of them. He told me that Irmgard had given him the list of names. Secret party members! She was no Nazi, no adulteress—not any more than Rudy Dorbransky is capable of . . . this! It will be all in the morning papers. The guards warned us that there might be anti-Jewish demonstrations, that we should stay home. The concert has been canceled for tomorrow night. When we left, there was already an angry mob outside shouting against Jewish musicians.”

  “Half the orchestra!” Elisa was angry at the news. “Yesterday Rudy was a brave hero. Tonight they would lynch him?”

  “If they believe half of what is being said—no, not said—shouted from the rooftops of Vienna!” Leah shook her head sadly. “It is not only bad for Rudy but for the rest of us as well. Maestro warned us that there would probably be police watching our flats to see if Rudy attempts to make contact.” Her gentle face contorted with grief. “I don’t want to go home.” Her words were no louder than a whisper. She could barely speak.

  “But you must.” Elisa was surprised at the force of her words. She took Leah by the shoulders. “They must not think you have been anywhere but at your flat. If they can do such a thing to Rudy, they can also arrange something for the rest of us. By the end of the week the entire orchestra could be implicated.” She was being sarcastic. “Pretty soon they’ll write in the papers that we are all involved in the scandal!”

  Leah nodded. Elisa was right. “Yes. Yes, of course. I should go home. I . . . I should go.” She seemed confused, searching for her coat, even though it was right in front of her.

  “Wait, Leah.” Elisa put a hand on her arm. “Shimon is ten minutes away. Let me call him. You mustn’t walk home alone.”

  Fear flashed in Leah’s eyes. “No. Not alone.”

  “Sit down then. I’ll fix you a cup of tea, and we’ll call Shimon.”

  Shimon arrived fifteen minutes later. Leah and Elisa had barely uttered a word in all that time. The big man helped Leah put on her coat. He seemed unable to find words to express what he was feeling. A fresh nightmare had come to awaken all of Vienna in a wave of anti-Semitism. As certainly as the sun would rise over the shining, cultured city, there would be a new melody played in the streets by morning. At last the lyrics of the Reich’s “Horst Wessel” song had found a way to breach the fortress of the Alps and take root in Austria.

  Raise high the flags! Stand rank on rank together.

  Storm Troopers march with steady, quiet tread.

  28

  Rudy’s Secret

  It was still dark when the phone rang in Elisa’s flat. She had not slept since Leah and Shimon had left two hours before. She had simply sat in the gloom and replayed the events of the last week over and over again in her mind. Now her personal problems seemed insignificant. Maybe Murphy was right about Vienna and his warning about Austria’s future, after all. She reached for the phone, hoping that it would be Murphy on the other end of the line; then she would tell him—

  “Hello, Murphy?” she asked eagerly, surprised that his name had come so easily to her lips.

  “Not Murphy,” a man’s voice replied haltingly, as if his teeth were clenched in pain.

  At first Elisa did not recognize the voice. Then she gasped, “Where are you?”

  “Don’t . . . ,” Rudy groaned. “Don’t say . . . anything. . . . Come. Please hurry.” He gave an address in the Seventh District, the area of Vienna filled with brothels and cheap cabarets.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just . . . ” The voice faltered. His breathing was labored. “Hurry.” He hung up, leaving her stunned and frightened on the other end of the receiver.

  She bit her lip and stood blinking at the telephone. What? What am I to do? God, help me. Tell me. Help us. Might she not be arrested too if she was caught with Rudy? She tried to think. She did not believe Rudy had hurt anyone. The desperation in his voice had reinforced that belief. He was in trouble, accused of a crime he could not have committed. Every Jew in Vienna would stand accused by morning.

  She slipped on her coat and stuffed all her spare cash into her handbag. He might need it. Rudy always needed money.

  ***

  Prostitutes stood in the doorways of the seedy hotels along the Lanterngasse. A few drunks staggered past her as she hurried down the sidewalk, scanning the shabby facades of th
e buildings for an address. Number 6. Flat D. The building seemed to lean against its neighbor. Even the bricks of the red-light district looked hungover. Ragged shades were drawn. No light came from behind the torn curtains. From somewhere deep in the darkness of the street, Elisa could hear the music of an accordion playing a sad melody she did not recognize.

  Green paint on the door was chipped and flaking. The number 6 was stenciled on the glass but was barely legible. For an instant Elisa nearly turned around to run back down the street—back to the Ring, to the great Burgtheatre and the familiar halls of the Musikverein. This was no part of Vienna that she recognized, and she was afraid.

  The door opened slightly, and a young woman with rouged cheeks and bleached blond hair whispered, “Come on! He is waiting!”

  Elisa’s heart thumped wildly in her ears. What was she doing here? Why had she come? She should have called Leah. But why hadn’t Rudy called Leah first? Why Elisa? She followed the young woman up stairs that seemed to be only propped against the bare brick wall. The woman seemed frightened as well. She stopped in front of the door marked with a rusted metal D. Then she jerked her head and stepped aside, waiting for Elisa to open the door.

  The doorknob was rusted and stiff. Elisa gripped hard and shoved the thin wooden door as the young prostitute hurried away, back down the creaking steps.

  The room was dark and cold—almost as cold as outside. It smelled of urine and vomit, and she felt her throat tighten with fear and revulsion.

  “Elisa,” Rudy’s voice rasped. A match hissed and sputtered as he lit the stub of a candle.

  “Rudy?” she asked. The man before her was barely recognizable. He was crouched miserably on the bare mattress of a small cot, and the candlelight flickered on a face swollen and disfigured. As he spoke, she saw that the once straight and glistening teeth were broken. His right eye was almost swollen shut. “My God! Rudy!” she cried. “What have they done to you?” She rushed to his side and knelt on the filthy floor.

  “I am a dead man, Elisa,” he said hollowly. “But I must tell you . . . everything.”

  “Let me call a doctor,” she gasped, noting the blood on his shirt.

  “No. It doesn’t matter.” He lifted his left hand toward the light. The hand was smashed and mangled. His first and second fingers were severed at the first knuckle and blood oozed out of the stubs, soaking the torn sleeve of his shirt. “I am dead,” he said again as she cried out.

  “Let me call a doctor!” she pleaded.

  “What difference?” His words came with difficulty. “They will not let me leave this room alive when they find me. They cannot. They cannot, because I am innocent.”

  “Of course you are, Rudy, darling.” Elisa was weeping openly. “We all know that. All of us in the orchestra.” She could not take her eyes away from the mangled hand that had played with such power and beauty.

  “Listen to me,” he rasped. “I could not call Leah. Shimon. The others. They will be watched. But you—” His face contorted with pain. “Listen. You must take my violin.”

  “No. No, Rudy—”

  “Listen!” he demanded. This was not the time for her to argue or offer sentimental words of reassurance. “The violin case . . . I hid it . . . at the Musikverein. Behind the cupboard with Haydn’s skull.”

  She knew it well. “Yes, Rudy. You want me to sell it?” She could not think what he must be telling her.

  “Take it to Leah. She will know. Tell her . . . they came. Four of them, and knocked me out. When I awoke, Irmgard was dead. Dead. Terrible . . . ”

  Now he wept, but she was afraid to touch him. “Oh, Rudy. Poor dear Rudy.”

  “And they had done this.” He held up his hand again. “But I crawled away in the night. Back streets. Shadows. Irmgard gave me the papers before. They are in the case”—he shuddered—“with the passports.”

  “Passports?” Elisa gasped. Suddenly all the months and years of Rudy’s behavior played back to her like a familiar melody with a new interpretation. He had been smuggling passports in his violin case! Long absences from the rest of the orchestra, disappearances and days in hiding when she had thought he had simply lost at cards and couldn’t pay his debts.

  Rudy almost smiled as he saw understanding flash across her face. “Yes. Passports, Elisa. Last year. In the station at Prague. When I gave you the Guarnerius . . . what happened when the train was stopped for customs check in Weimar?”

  The memory of the vulturelike inspector came back to her. He had waved her through. The violin case and her suitcase had been taken behind a screen and . . . and what? “The Nazi inspector—”

  “One of us. Dead now. Gestapo got him. Shot his assistant in the station when he tried to run. The inspector was not so lucky . . . like me. Eight passports you carried to him, and the rest—including your own father’s passport—you brought them to your house. To your father.”

  Elisa shook her head in disbelief. How could any of this be true? “My father?” she asked with a cry.

  “Theo Lindheim.” Rudy said the name slowly. “Lindheim. A good man. Good.”

  “You knew, then? About me? About Papa?”

  Rudy could only nod. He struggled for breath as he spoke. “Irmgard.” He said the name of the dead woman. “She got it all for us . . . his file. They knew, the Gestapo knew, he was helping us.”

  Of course. She remembered the night they arrested him. Hadn’t they said they had questions about his donations to Zionism? But her mother had assumed it was something she had done.

  “They will never let him go.” Rudy’s voice was barely audible. “Like me.” He let his broken hand rise and fall like a torn flag.

  “He is alive?” she begged as the life seemed to ebb from Rudy, “Please! Please, Rudy! Rudy! Is my father alive?”

  He turned his eyes on her in one final effort. “Dachau!” he whispered; then he lapsed into unconsciousness.

  There was no need to call a doctor—no need for the money she had stuffed into her handbag. Rudy Dorbransky would be dead before she could reach her home, before she could dial a number on the telephone—possibly before she reached the bottom of the stairs in this grim and stinking place. She had never seen a man die before. But Elisa knew that this morning, Rudy would be mourned only by the anxious young prostitute who rushed in after Elisa left the room. Privately Elisa would grieve; members of the orchestra secretly would lament, but Vienna would celebrate the death of this race defiler. No doubt the papers would say he had held off police in a desperate battle that lasted for several hours in the heart of the Seventh District. Someone would think of some reasonable excuse for the condition of the body. Bullet holes would be conveniently provided, and there would be a celebration.

  It had begun. Just as she had seen it begin in Berlin in 1933. Murphy had been right all along. Yes. Vienna too.

  Elisa’s eyes were dry as she rounded the corner of her own street. Dachau! echoed in her mind, driving out the sight of the dawn’s first pink banners in the eastern sky. My father is alive. If being in such a place was living. Her father had taken part in all those activities Elisa had feared in Leah’s little Zionist meetings. He had not sold his soul like Faust, and yet the flames of Satan scorched him even now. Dachau!

  She did not know what to do. There was much that would happen in Vienna the next few days. Mourning. Celebration. The triumph of evil men over good. When it had settled down, Elisa would go to the Musikverein to the case where Haydn’s skull grinned out at the music students. The Guarnerius was safe there until then.

  ***

  Murphy watched the news from Vienna clatter over the teletype of the INS offices in Paris. Timmons had flown in two days before from Berlin, and Johnson was coming Christmas Eve. Berlin was a gloomy place of long food lines and glum people pressed into participation in the torchlight processions with the mobs of Hitler Youth and SS hordes. Nobody in the news service wanted to spend Christmas in Berlin this year.

  Holding a steaming mug of coffee in both
hands, Murphy stared into the cup as Timmons read the story of Rudy Dorbransky, the Jew who had fallen in love with the Nazi’s wife.

  Timmons sounded almost amused. “Boy, this one has it all! Attempted murder, by the female’s enraged brother, of course. Then suicide—the enraged brother again. Then the girlfriend gets enraged and tries to break it off, and the boyfriend bumps her off! The civilian vigilante committee cornered this guy in some seedy brothel in the Seventh District this morning. Bumped him off and caught a prostitute in the cross fire. Killed her too. Everybody dead. Like something out of . . . Phantom of the Opera!”

  Murphy sipped his coffee as though the news was only news, but inside he was churning. “I interviewed Rudy Dorbransky.” He glanced at his briefcase. He still carried the notes. “That guy was no killer.”

  “Ah, come on, Murph.” Timmons blew his nose loudly. “You never know what a guy’ll do for a dame. I mean, I’ve seen the most seemingly calm joe go absolutely nuts. You don’t know . . . this guy might’ve gone crazy when she said he wasn’t the one for her.”

  Murphy frowned. He was certainly not going to go nuts over a dame. Not even Elisa Linder. He had already made up his mind about that. “I’m telling you, the guy was not the type.”

  “Says here he was a real ladies’ man. Drunk. Gambler. Sounds like the type to me.”

  “Don’t believe everything you read in the news.” Murphy took another sip of coffee, scalding his mouth. “Reminds me of the day after Hitler took over in 1933. Remember?”

  “Nope,” Timmons answered truthfully. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “The Nazis burned down the Reichstag. That’s like burning down the Senate building.”

  “Why’d they do that? The guy won.”

  “They wanted to make a point.” He smiled at the irony. “You see, the Nazis only won with one third of the vote. So they wanted to emphasize that they were right about the rotten Bolsheviks and Jews.”