by Bodie Thoene
Throwing open the sliding door and grabbing the canvas bag without regard to the vicious heat searing his hands and arms, the clerk pitched the blazing sack from the moving train. It arced through the air like a meteor streaking to earth, leaving a trail of gray smoke and flaming letters.
Its flight took it directly into the path of another train going the opposite direction. When the fireball was struck, it showered both sides of the railway carriages with burning debris.
Both engines ground to a halt and the tracks were soon swarming with passengers, crew, and curiosity seekers. Some were clutching smoldering fragments of envelopes as souvenirs. The injured mail clerk with blistered hands futilely tried to retrieve the letters from the ditches and the crowd.
By the time this happened, Allan Farrell had long since deposited the last of his weapons of terror and returned home to await results. The scream of sirens that began suddenly and increased rapidly gave him great satisfaction.
***
The distant sound of a siren pierced the evening air as Orde stepped onto the sidewalk. He raised his head to listen, then hurried inside.
Orde’s bags were packed and loaded in the taxi that waited downstairs in front of the house on Red Lion Square. A broad-faced woman poked her head out to watch Orde suspiciously as he climbed the stairs to Murphy’s residence. His step was light in anticipation of the plan he was about to present. Precious British passports!
“D’Mizzus Murphy, she has just home from the hospital got from the having of the baby!” the woman called after him, indicating he should not visit at such a time.
“I am invited,” Orde said softly over his shoulder.
“Okay den, but you don’t too long stay because all dis is wearing her out!” Then the door slammed shut. A second later it opened again. “An’ don’t too loud on the door knock!” the indignant voice instructed him in a shouted whisper.
As per instructions, Orde rapped softly, doffed his cap, and ran his hand through his hair. Murphy’s voice was a tiptoe beyond the door. “That you, Orde?” He opened the door and stepped back, inviting Orde to enter with a finger placed over his lips.”She’s sleeping,” Murphy explained. Then Mrs. Murphy . . . Elisa . . . slipped into the room with two women following after. It was plain to see that they were all related. The physical resemblance was strong and impressive to Orde. Fine-looking women, all three of them. Elisa, her mother Anna, and Anna’s sister Helen Ibsen.
Elisa Murphy did not look as though anything was wearing her out, Orde thought as he considered the warning of the woman in the stairwell. Dressed in a pale pink cotton skirt topped by a shirt that probably belonged to her husband, she looked as if she had just come in from a stroll on the beach at Brighton. Her short blond hair was swept back. She wore no makeup. Her skin looked fresh and scrubbed. Orde did not let himself look into the blueness of her eyes as he shook her hand. He envied Murphy. A new baby and a woman who would be a pleasure to wake up next to.
Anna and Helen were different, older versions of the same uncluttered attractiveness. Helen was younger than Anna and slightly taller than Anna and Elisa. And when he looked into Helen’s eyes, he saw the sadness plainly.
Did she see something behind his face as well? Introductions were made all around; then it was Helen Ibsen who took charge of the meeting. She led Orde to the sofa, sat down, and indicated that he should sit beside her. Elisa and Anna slipped out to make coffee. Helen then told Orde the story of the young man with whom he was about to make contact. Jacob Kalner, so in need of a passport!
The story of Jacob Kalner was anything but happy. Reports were confirmed that Jacob’s father had been executed in prison. His mother had died of typhus six weeks ago. They had not yet broken the news to Jacob. They had waited, hoping that he would be here in England among friends when he was told. “But he will ask,” Helen said quietly. “It would be better if someone was there with him to tell him face-to-face.”
Coffee was served, and Helen shared everything she could about him—much more than Orde cared to know. She finished by saying, “My daughter, Lori, is in love with him. She thinks I don’t know, but . . . she is my daughter.” Helen frowned. “There was a time when I promised Jacob’s mother that we would care for him if something happened. Well, everything has happened. And Jacob is out of reach.” She put a hand on Orde’s arm. “I want to ask you to take good care of Jacob. He is like my own child. My children are coming home to me, and Jacob is staying behind. Until we can find some way.” She paused, “He is a good boy, Captain Orde. And he will have no one but you for a while.”
At first Helen Ibsen talked over and around the insistent wail of sirens that had begun moments after Orde entered. Then the increasing racket caused everyone to look at one another in concern.
Murphy stood up and went to the window as two more police cars screamed past and rounded the corner. “Excuse me,” he mumbled, retreating to the office. “Ambulance chasing gets in the blood.”
Murphy’s voice could be heard as he telephoned the TENS office to see what news was coming over the police radio frequency. Before he emerged, the rapid stumbling of footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Charles and Louis burst into the room, their eyes wide and horrified. They were shouting a jumble of English and German words. Behind them, at a much slower pace, came Doc Grogan. He too looked pale and worried.
He did not say hello, did not seem to notice Orde, or Anna and Helen. “Where’s Murphy?” he asked Elisa curtly.
“Here.” Murphy stood framed in the doorway.
“Are the Nazis coming?” Charles clung, weeping to Elisa. There was no mistaking the terror in his eyes.
“Bombs.” Doc began to talk in a rapid-fire voice that he had repeatedly warned Orde against using on the radio. “We took a taxi. I was afraid to take the underground with the boys.” He shook his head. “Bombs all over London. Every district post office has been hit. I mean every post office we passed.”
The hammering wail of sirens filled the air. Tomorrow the children of Helen Ibsen were leaving Danzig for the imagined safety of London. But apparently there was no safety. Not anywhere.
Orde looked toward his briefcase, which held the photographs of the Lubetkin family. He had not had a chance to explain his idea to Murphy. In an hour, Orde had to be on his ship, yet Murphy and Grogan were saying good-bye and rushing out the door. There was no use trying to pull Murphy into the office and explain his idea with all this going on.
Rocking on his heels, Orde stood at the window for a few minutes and watched fire trucks and ambulances speeding past. How best to approach these women with the plan for obtaining passports for Jacob Kalner and the others among the Lubetkin family?
The boys were crying. Baby Katie awoke unhappily as the noise grew louder. Over this confusion, Orde sat down and took a sip of tepid tea. What if they did not appreciate the logic of his plan? What if they . . . ? Oh, well, he thought, spill it.
In the midst of this chaos, Orde displayed each photograph on the coffee table beside Katie’s passport. No one noticed the sirens anymore as Orde explained his plan.
“I think the photograph of Rachel Lubetkin is good enough to pass easily for British. The pictures of the rest of the family will have to be retaken.”
“What about Jacob?” asked Helen.
“It is only a matter of getting the passport pictures to you here in England. In the meantime, you should immediately begin looking in cemeteries.”
The woman exchanged nervous glances. “We have been warned by certain British officials,” Anna explained. “We are fairly certain they are watching us closely.”
Orde had a ready reply.”Brass rubbing,” he said. “A piece of paper, a crayon. Put it over the stone and rub. It is quite popular among the British. People studying genealogies. A pleasant summer pastime that no one will question.”
“It looks as though we are back in business,” Elisa said cheerfully as she took down the violin case from the cupboard. “Mother? How m
any do you think we can reasonably manage?”
Anna looked skyward. “It depends on how much time the politicians give us.” Then to Orde, “This means you will have to make difficult choices. Appearance and mannerisms will be important. Language. It would not do to send someone on a steamer to Southampton who could not address the steward in English.”
Orde was accustomed to difficult discussions. “Have the birth certificates ready to go. I am hoping to have the photographs in your hands within a fortnight of the time I arrive in Poland. I will send them by air courier among the regular news photographs. From there it will be a matter of submitting the passport applications and waiting a few weeks.”
“And then smuggling the documents to you in Warsaw,” Anna said.
Elisa eyed the battered violin case and remembered. “It cannot be half as hard in Poland as it was in the Reich.”
“As long as Poland is not also the Reich,” Orde added with a grimness that gave fulfillment of the plan a new desperation.
***
Hess knew from the first reply that he had at last found the right apartment building.
“So who wants to know about them?” asked the overweight middle-aged woman who owned the building and managed it herself.
“There is a reward,” Hess remarked, sliding the photograph back into his packet as though time was short.
“A reward for what?” The woman eyed his black-gloved hand and the silver tip of his cane.
“Simply for locating them.”
“They haven’t broken the law, have they? They seem like good children. At first I did not wish to rent to them, but they seemed quite polite. They have been good tenants. Pay their rent on time. Quieter than most. No bother.” She blew her nose noisily and scrutinized Hess with renewed suspicion. “So what have they done?”
“They are sought by their families.”
“And what are you to them?”
“I am only the man hired to find them and bring them home.”
The woman cleared her throat and glanced both ways from hall to foyer. “You said something about a reward?”
“Fifty marks to the one who helps locate them.”
“Fifty for me, or must I split it with you?”
“Have you keys to their flat?” Hess smiled and looked up the stairs. He had not doubted that he would find them. The surprise lay only in the fact that it had been so easy.
“For seventy-five marks I have keys.” She laid her hand on the desk.
“I can knock on each door for nothing,” Hess countered.
“They are not home.” The hand remained unmoving and unintimidated on the desk.
Hess counted out the bills and then stepped back as she opened a cabinet with numbered keys hanging on the inside of the door. Apartment 2-C. She removed the brass keys and passed them to Hess.
“I can see myself up.” He nodded his thanks.
She called after him, “It is only fair that I get seventy-five, you know, since you are taking my tenants, and I will receive no more rent from them. It is only fair.”
***
Hess did not turn on the light in the flat, although the gloom of twilight made it difficult for him to see well. He relocked the door and then stood in the center of the sparsely furnished front room, savoring his victory.
He could make out the shapes of dishes stacked on the shelf above the kitchen sink in the corner. Clean. Neat. Nothing seemed out of place. No wonder the landlady had demanded seventy-five marks for betraying such exemplary tenants.
He limped to the open door of a large bedroom. In the last ray of daylight he could see that the double bed was perfectly made up. Two vases of flowers filled the room with fragrance. He shoved the keys into his pocket and went to the window to look out on the narrow street below. From this vantage point he could just make out the corner window of the cabaret. He nodded, as if to congratulate himself on his superb instincts. They would have heard the music. Had they sensed their own peril?
He reached out with his uninjured hand to pluck a daisy from the bouquet on the chest of drawers. Tucking it into his buttonhole, he sat on the edge of the bed and swung his aching leg onto the mattress. Then he removed his pistol and placed it beside him on the pillow.
This would be as good a place to wait for them as any. The muzzle of a gun in the mouth of the first one through the door would hold them all prisoner. A simple matter.
Patting his flask, he considered celebrating with a swallow of schnapps. Then he thought better of it and leaned his head back against the headboard as the room grew darker.
***
The Wilson Line steamer East Sea eased into the wharf. Though night had closed in around the port of Danzig, Orde could still make out the loading docks and cargo cranes.
Orde ran a practiced military eye over the scene, noting the spread of warehouses along the waterfront. Journalist’s eye, he corrected himself, but he went on observing strong points and defensible positions just the same.
Danzig was supposed to be a place where war might break out. According to the ravings of Herr Hitler, Danzig must and would belong to the Reich. It was apparent to Orde that warlike preparations were taking place. A convoy of trucks, distinctly German in appearance but bearing Danzig license plates, streamed past the Wilson Line docks toward an isolated and dimly lit warehouse.
They are not transporting tea, thought Orde grimly. He declined the offer of a taxi to his hotel, deciding that he would walk the few blocks instead. From the pocket of his overcoat he retrieved a notebook with the address of the Ibsen children, but he replace it unopened after realizing that it was too late to go there. He would see them at the docks tomorrow, anyway. Orde’s luggage had been shipped ahead to Warsaw, except for the compact valise he carried.
The area of Danzig adjacent to the harbor was gloomy and dismal. A trio of drunken sailors paused on wobbly legs, apparently searching their fuddled brains for directions. When the middle of the three men slid down to lie unconscious on the cobblestones, his companions dragged him out of the street, emptied his pockets of a few remaining coins, and left him propped against a warehouse wall.
Up ahead, one bright light in all the grimy dark beckoned to Orde. The polished globe of the lamp spoke of more care and concern than could be seen anywhere else in the quarter. Orde was drawn to the light to see what warranted such pride in the otherwise neglected surroundings.
The neatly lettered sign beside the door read ENGLISH MARINER’S CHURCH. The words were printed in English at the top but repeated in German and in Polish below that. Orde thought how appropriate that seemed; here was Danzig caught between Germany and Poland with England trying to make sense of it all.
Orde knew that time was running short. If Danzig was a barrel of petrol, then the lighten match was very close indeed. He had heard the reports of how the Nazis were transporting arms and ammunition across the Nogat River from East Prussia by night. The Nazis in Danzig clearly wanted war, but then they had their sights set on a much larger target than just this port.
The rest of the German Danzigers expected to be reunited with the Reich, but without bloodshed, the way Hitler had demanded and gotten the Sudetenland. They wanted to be German, but not at the cost of war and the interruption of their trade with Poland. They were deluding themselves. The war that was most certainly coming would engulf them all.
***
Some time after dark a bank of storm clouds swept in from the Baltic and erupted over Danzig. Lucy awakened to the soft cry of her baby, tended to his needs first, and then set out pots and pans to catch the drips from the leaking roof.
The dissonant clank of water drummed against the pots, and rain sluiced through the gutters. Lucy nursed the baby and then, lulled by the unwritten melody and the coolness of the air, she fell into a deep and untroubled sleep again.
The storm outside raged on, unabated through the long night. After a day of heat and profound exhaustion, Lucy was too weary to worry any longer that Wolf was somewher
e in Danzig, perhaps very near. There was only one fundamental issue. She and the baby were both alive, both well. She had no strength to dwell on anything beyond that. Her sleep was dreamless and profound. If her baby had cried, Lucy would have awakened, but he did not cry. The child too simply slept on in the illusion of well-being beside the warmth of his mother’s body.
The summer storm seemed to sing its lullaby to Lucy. She felt no foreboding at the drum of distant thunder. She never heard the sound of boots against the stairs. She did not stir at the rattle of the extra key that had been bought from the old concierge in the lobby. For these few hours, at least, Lucy was at peace beside her child. Merciful sleep. It shut the unthinkable disaster from her mind even as the lock clicked open, and the hinge of the door groaned back.
22
One Moment of Joy
Werner seemed very happy with the large and elegant room at the Sopot casino. There were tabletops to explore and the fringe of a bedspread with which he could do battle. The fixtures in the bathroom were shiny brass, and he could see a kitten reflection in the faucet. There was one big bed for Mark and Jamie to share and a very nice feather-cushioned sofa for Alfie. A silver candy dish held perfect round chocolates. Mark poked his finger in the bottom of every one to see what was inside, but Alfie did not mind. He decided not to look at the bottom before he took a bite. He liked surprises as long as they were nice surprises. Butter creams, marshmallow, orange stuff, and cherries.
“This is much better than just going to Sprinter’s for lemon ice and sleeping on the beach.” Jamie said, finally looking happy.
“Jacob and Lori’s room is not nearly so big as this.” Mark sat back on the sofa and propped his feet on the coffee table. He punctured another chocolate, peered in, and popped it into his mouth. “You know if they were in here, we could not put our feet up or poke the chocolates.”