by Bodie Thoene
“I did not mention Blomberg by name, of course. But there are many others who stand with us. With every victory that Hitler wins because of the diplomatic appeasement of other nations, he becomes more wildly popular with the German people! Elisa, what he says is believed and acted upon as though he were a god. He has such power over the people! He needs to have a few defeats before they will see. He needs to be stopped cold in his tracks by the great nations standing up to him. The German nationalistic fervor is at such a high pitch that we must move carefully. Do you understand what I am saying?”
She nodded and squeezed his hands. Then she reached up and brushed back a tumbled lock of his hair. “I’m sorry I doubted you.” She could barely speak. “I should have known there was a reason you stayed.”
“I was ready to leave.” He frowned, not quite able to accept her praise. “I am such a small cog. I did not know about all this until after I wrote you. I believed that the German High Command was simply letting it slide away. Himmler and his Gestapo have been undermining Canaris and the Abwehr for over a year. The maniacs work the hardest to drive the same men out. And it is working.” He drew a deep breath. “But there is hope. Fritsch and Blomberg are holding Hitler back by their disapproval of the plan. They keep begging for a little more time.”
“I remember them both as very strong men.”
“They are not blameless, though.” Thomas looked sad. “Some of the guilt must fall on every man in the High Command, every officer in the military.” He bit his lip. “Even the very small cogs. I can remember cheering when Hitler announced that we were going to reoccupy the Rhineland. It was, in a way, like saying my father had not died in vain in the last war . . . we would all be Germans and proud once again! And that is the poison which has infected our country, Elisa. Beyond that, there is a madness, an evil, which I cannot explain. It is that evil that has claimed men like your father as victims. I am more afraid of this than anything. If Austria is taken, Hitler will bring the madness with him. And Austria is the door to Czechoslovakia.”
“My mother and brothers—”
“And Czechoslovakia is the door into Poland. If it begins, this terrible eclipse, it will not stop until the darkness is accomplished.” He looked exhausted. He laid his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes as she simply stared at him. Like her father, Thomas had carried on a secret life that she had not suspected. Elisa touched his head softly and his mouth curved in a slight smile. He knew he was forgiven. Could he hope again that she might love him as she had before?
After a few minutes, he sighed deeply and fell asleep on the sofa. She got him a pillow and tugged off his shoes, then covered him with a blanket. How long had he gone without sleep? she wondered.
She was exhausted as well, but all that he had told her spun in her mind as she lay down and tried to sleep. She thought of her father. Theo would have told her that the life of one man must sometimes be sacrificed for the good of others. Theo had lived that belief to the letter. And now Thomas too had in a way sacrificed his life. For the sake of what he believed was right, he had turned away from her. She could forgive him easily for that, but tonight she could not find the love in her heart that she had once felt for him. The world was threatening to explode in an all-consuming flame. How could she think of herself? of her own fate? There was so much more at stake. Thomas knew. Theo knew. Thank God someone in the German High Command knew. And there were people like Leah and Shimon and Rudy, people like the Wattenbargers, who sensed what was coming and chose to fight it on a personal level. They could do nothing to stop the massive international tidal wave that threatened now to engulf the world, but they would at least find high ground and provide a lifeline for all who were struggling.
As Elisa drifted off to sleep, the faces of the children came back to her. Three in Kitzbühel. Two from Munich. It had been so simple to help them! And how many thousands more were there? Jesu, juva! Her own problems were very slight indeed, compared to those children. If Plan Otto was accomplished, not only Jewish children in Germany would be threatened, but those now living in Austria as well!
That night Elisa dreamed of trainloads of little ones, all of whom had her last name. They slept like little tumbled dominos as the trains moved eastward and Hitler screamed, “Living space for Germans!”
Elisa rode atop the first train and argued with an SS officer who carried a machine gun. “Not to the east! Hitler will take the east for his Reich! Turn the trains around! These are my children! My children! My home is west. I have room for them, a place for them! Do not take them east!”
For hours as she pleaded, the black-shirted officer laughed at her. He hooked his thumbs in his belt. His belt buckle gleamed. “Gott mit uns.” On his arm was the insignia of a skull and crossbones. His laughter was louder than her pleas. She reached up to slap his face, and a mask suddenly dropped away, revealing the face of Lucifer. He laughed more uproariously as Elisa shouted that he could not take the children.
“I take them for the burning!” he shouted back through his laughter. “They are dead! Already dead! And so will you be!”
At the pronouncement, she turned to look at the railcars, and all the sleeping children had become heaps of bones. Her own hand withered before her eyes and the flesh dropped away.
“Jesus, help!” she cried, and then the face of Lucifer changed to rage. He lifted a claw to strike, and once again she called, “Jesu, juva!” And a wind came and blew the Evil One from the train where she stood.
Then Thomas called to her from far away, “Elisa! Darling! Elisa! Wake up. It is only a dream. Just a dream!”
She opened her eyes to see Thomas’s worried face over her. She reached her arms up to him and he embraced her. “Terrible,” she choked. “So real . . .”
“Just a dream.” He rocked her. “Only a bad dream.”
“All the children. Going east. I tried to tell him there was a place for them, but he laughed at me.” She was drenched with perspiration and trembling all over.
“Whose children?” Thomas asked.
“Mine. A million children. And I loved them all.” She wept now, unable to shake the images that had come to her. “God help me. God! They are mine! And Papa must have had the same dream.”
Thomas patted her gently. “I’ll make you tea, Elisa. It will help you wake up. We all have nightmares nowadays. A cup of tea will help.”
He padded away and she listened to the sounds of the water filling the kettle and the clank of metal on the stove. Outside the rain was falling. Her own reflection looked pale in the mirror, but the horror of her dream receded after a few minutess. She was grateful that Thomas was with her. She wiped her eyes and managed a weak smile when he came back into the room with a dainty flowered teacup in his big hand.
“It is almost morning,” he said. She noticed that he had washed and that his hair was combed. “I have to go before daybreak.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead.
“You are leaving?” She was surprisingly disappointed.
“I need to get back to Paris. I shouldn’t have come here, but I couldn’t bear having you hate me without knowing—”
“I don’t hate you,” she whispered.
“But you don’t love me, either.” He smiled sadly. “But then, maybe neither one of us has time for that now.” Touching her cheek, he looked into her eyes as though he really saw her. “Those children, Elisa,” he questioned. “Are they the same ones Theo was helping?”
“I suppose.”
“And are they yours as well?”
“I hope so.” She frowned and looked away. Had she ever felt such a burden? ever such a responsibility?
“Then you must be very careful.” He kissed her lightly. “And if you should ever decide you need a husband—” he shrugged again—“you know how to reach me.”
“Café de Triumph.” This was a farewell. There was nothing more to say. There was no calling back what had once been for them. Perhaps another time? When things are different?
> Thomas took the teacup from her and placed it on the floor beside the bed; then he took her in his arms and kissed her once again, letting his mouth linger on hers. She did not push him away. This final gesture brought tears to her eyes. It was truly over between them.
“For old times’ sake,” he said hoarsely. Then he grinned. “I am glad I can remember you like this—your hair mussed and your eyes swollen and red. It might make my long nights more bearable.”
She listened as the door to the apartment shut and his footsteps retreated down the stairs. Six weeks earlier she would have begged him to stay. She would have run after him in the rain. Now she simply whispered, “Grüss Gott, Thomas. God bless.”
***
That same morning there was reason for joy within the orchestra, and also reason for grief. Shimon and Leah had received their travel visas permitting them to travel and settle in Palestine. The visas demanded that they travel as a married couple, a provision that delighted Shimon. Not only would two travel cheaper than each singly, but the wedding night could be celebrated much earlier. At that suggestion, Leah consented to a civil ceremony only, with the “real” wedding to take place after they arrived in Jerusalem, just as they had planned.
The precious documents were passed from hand to hand among the orchestra members. The date of their exit was three months away in May, and still Elisa felt a pang of sorrow at the thought of Leah going away. Tears clouded her eyes. “What will I do without you?” Elisa could barely speak.
“You’ll come to Palestine too.” Leah tapped her chin in a chin-up gesture.
Elisa frowned and studied Leah. Ever since they had known each other, Leah had talked of Palestine, dreamed of Palestine, raised funds for Palestine, and welcomed lecturers who had come from the desolate land to talk of new and wonderful beginnings. Lawyers and teachers and musicians had drifted off to become farmers and tree planters. This was not for Elisa. She was certain even now it never would be. Her only real interest in the place was as a refuge for German-Jewish children; and if the truth were known, she thought that America was probably a better place to send them. There were bread lines there, certainly, but no Arab mobs rioted and burned at the will of a religious fanatic like the Arab Mufti of Jerusalem. America!
As though Leah had read her thoughts, she laughed and said, “No, not you, Elisa. Never you for Palestine, I think. America better suits you. No doubt after your first day in the hot sun of Jerusalem you would be sunburned.” She winked as the male members of the orchestra hooted and teased Elisa. “You should find yourself an American to marry! Like that Murphy fellow you sent off. Silly of you to chase him away, Elisa.”
Elisa did not laugh. The subject of John Murphy was still too painful for her. “He did propose to me. That night at Sacher’s.”
“What?” Leah exclaimed. “And you let an American passport get away?”
“He is more than just a passport.” Elisa mumbled, turning away.
“Then find him!”
“His proposal was . . . just to help. I couldn’t do that to a man. Tie him up like that.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Leah cried. “Do you know what an American passport could do to help us?” She was serious now and spoke in an urgent whisper. “I was going to suggest that we simply pay some American to marry you. For your own safety. And now you’re telling me that a man already proposed—just to help—and your conscience won’t let you tie him up? Elisa, wake up! This may go on a long time. You need the protection an American passport can give you. If you’re going to stay here, please, use your head so you don’t lose it.”
“I can’t marry him. Not anyone. I . . . I care for him, Leah, and I won’t use him.”
Leah simply stood with her hands on her hips and stared at Elisa. “If you won’t think of yourself, think of the operation. Find him. Find out if his offer is still good. He is probably getting proposals from women every day—all of them offering good money to use his name and get a passport. One of these days he’ll get an offer too good to pass up, and then we will have lost him. And since Hitler has begun screaming about how dreadful Czechoslovakia is, you can bet the Gestapo will start giving you trouble with your Czech passport.”
Elisa still had not told her about the night in Munich with the Gestapo agent. The thought made her shudder. “Murphy is gone,” she replied. “If you think it’s that important—”
“That important! Shimon has already set the matchmaker to looking for a match for you. It doesn’t matter if he’s poor, ugly or stupid, dear, as long as he’s American!”
***
Elisa did not share any of what Thomas had told her with Leah or Shimon or the others. Twice more she traveled to Kitzbühel with precious cargos of little ones and always she remembered the nightmare of trains full of children moving slowly, inexorably, eastward. The farmhouse haven of the Wattenbarger family was west from Vienna, but still, it was not far enough west. It was still in Austria, and if the plans of the German High Command and Thomas were stopped, if the British and the French failed to stand firm and continued to appease the madman Hitler, then Austria would be swallowed.
On the morning of February 5, 1938, while Elisa was returning to Vienna from the Tyrol, a newspaper boy passed through the train car with his paper held aloft as he announced the headlines:
German Chancellor Hitler dismisses General Fritsch and Blomberg!
With trembling hands, Elisa purchased a newspaper and read the latest news from Germany. Hitler himself had assumed the supreme command of the armed forces. In one stroke, he had removed power from the hands of the men who hoped for moderation. As if he had some supernatural second sight, he had smashed the men who had opposed his will. As much as it is possible for one man to make his will absolute over spheres so vast, Hitler had done so. Now he had assumed direct and complete control not only over the policies of the German state but also of the military machine. As she read, the nightmare images of the eastbound trains returned to her. Had the S. S. officer on top of the train been Hitler? She tried to remember his face.
In Vienna, the news of the sacking of the two German generals in the High Command was received with shrugs of indifference. Of course, no one could be expected to understand the implications of such an event. What difference did that make to Vienna and Austria? Hitler was, after all, a dictator. Everyone had heard the stories about him, his mad rages against anyone who dared dispute him. Vienna was not surprised or even alarmed by the news. But Vienna did not know what Elisa was aware of.
She wanted desperately to talk to Thomas, and twice that week she called the little café in Paris. He was not there. And so she bore the burden of knowledge alone. Daily she prayed for the men in the British government who also knew of Plan Otto, and who understood what the loss of Blomberg and Fritsch meant. She hoped that those men cared enough to stop Hitler, who grew daily in his megalomania.
In the evenings, after concerts played without the old joy that had filled her once, Elisa sat in gloomy groups and listened to the tirades of Hitler against the English and the French and the government of Austria. Those first weeks in February, the shadows of darkness stretched longer until at last they crossed the border and touched the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg.
***
Thomas watched as Admiral Canaris paced back and forth in front of his desk. The dismissal of Generals Blomberg and Fritsch had sent shock waves throughout the few men in the German High Command who hoped to wrest the control of the nation from Hitler. Only a few weeks since Thomas had spoken with Anthony Eden about the secret plans of the conspirators, two key figures had been sacked, and now Adolf Hitler held absolute dominion over the military. He could, at a whim, strip a general of rank, discharge him from his duties in the army, or even have him shot for treason. The will of Hitler had now become the will of Germany. There was no separation of the two. In the military and in matters of state, now there was only one law . . . one Führer!
“Hitler has requested that young office
rs from every branch of the services be sent to Berchtesgaden.” Canaris did not stop his pacing. “He wants to put on a demonstration to the young German elite of his expertise in military matters as well as matters of state. The illustration he will use with you is his domination of Austria.”
“With me? You mean I am going?” Thomas felt stunned by the order.
“You are perfect for it. He will strut and posture and the young Wehrmacht officers will all applaud and stand in awe.”
“But why send me? I am revolted by him.”
“That is why I send you. You are a junior officer. Hitler intends that you fellow officers will go back to the ranks and tell the army what a magician he is, how none can stand before him.” He stopped and stared at Thomas. “You and I both know that you will not be impressed, ja? Besides, I need a reliable source of information about the events at Berchtesgaden. I have the feeling that our dear Führer”—he said the word with sarcasm—“is simply singing a requiem for Austria. This is all part of Plan Otto. Intimidation is his sharpest sword, and he uses it at will. You must tell me everything you see and hear.”
“What will happen now, Herr Admiral?” Thomas pressed his hand against his aching temple.
“Hitler will summon the Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg.”
“And if Schuschnigg doesn’t come to Berchtesgaden?”
“He is an honorable man. Young and foolish in many ways, but a man of honor. A man who hopes for peace without bloodshed. He will come.” The eyes of Canaris seemed to see the scene before him. “Like a puppy who sidles up to a cruel master in hopes that there will not be a beating, Herr von Schuschnigg will come.”
Canaris sat down heavily in his chair, as though the certainty of the events had drained him of energy. “This performance with the leader of Austria is intended to show Hitler’s power to the nations of the world, and also to those of us within the military who might seek to question his absolute control.” He ran a hand though his hair. “Other generals have been invited to the farce, but only those Hitler is sure of. The rest are low-ranking officers who will be easily impressed by bravado and bullying.”