by Bodie Thoene
Throbbing engines boomed out the too-familiar rhythm he had known for months onboard the Darien. Sometimes the cadence blended into dreams of a symphony he had performed in Vienna. Sometimes the thrumming heartbeat of the great ship intruded on his dreams as the slap of Nazi jackboots on the cobblestones beneath their apartment window, or a giant hammer clanging against glowing metal in the steel mill of Hamburg. In the end, the dream was always the same for Shimon. . . . .
The roar of thunder as lightning split the wind.
Green water above the mast of the Darien. The groaning of metal as the hand of the deep twisted the freighter like a toy ship.
The tiny white coffin of Ada-Marie Holbein bobbing to the surface.
The lapping of waves.
His own gasping breath.
A disembodied voice calling out to God for help.
And the silence.
The silence finally awakened him. The engines of the liner slowed and stopped. Chains rattled; the anchor slid beneath the water of yet another Mediterranean port. And Shimon Feldstein sat up in his sweat-soaked berth and gasped from the terror of the nightmare that had all been true. No figment of his imagination. All of it. True!
As Leah slept beside him unaware, Shimon climbed from the bed and groped his way toward the morning light streaming through the porthole. He leaned his cheek against the cool glass and breathed deeply as he tried to shake himself free from the images. He forced himself to focus on the stone houses that clung to the slopes of this rocky Greek island. In the half-light they seemed to be a soft pastel blue in color. In the daylight they would be white. On the pebble-strewn beach a fisherman gathered his nets.
Is he the only living being in the silent village? No. He is not like me. There are others sleeping in the blue houses. He is not the only one.
Each morning Shimon eased himself back to sanity in this way. But the question never left him. Why had he, alone of all those onboard the Darien, survived?
***
The London residence of Theo and Anna Lindheim was a tall, narrow brownstone, identical to every other house on their street.
It was tiny indeed, compared with the great Berlin house on Wilhelmstrasse that Hitler had just ordered destroyed. It was even smaller than the Mala Strana house in Prague.
Anna had chosen it for its brightness and for its close proximity to the house of Elisa and Murphy. “Just a short walk, and we can have tea together. Around the corner from Covent Garden!” she had said. “No room for even a baby grand piano? Ah, well, I can still play Chopin and Schubert on an upright!”
A nice little upright had been found in a dusty secondhand shop down the street. Anna had entertained the shopkeeper and six awed customers by playing the yellowed ivory keys as if they were attached to a concert grand. After a moving performance of Chopin’s Nocturnes, Anna was able to say, truthfully, that she had purchased the instrument “for a song.” The price included delivery up a flight of narrow stairs.
Theo was content with a massive walnut desk that filled half the floor space of a tiny room he called “the study.”The room was a far cry from the enormous library of first-edition volumes he had enjoyed in Germany’s better days. Opposite his desk were two nearly empty bookshelves.
Theo had talked of visits to London’s bookshops in order to gradually fill those shelves. But now there was no time for a leisurely stroll through the booksellers’ stalls of St. Paul’s. It might be months before Theo could consider reading a book for pleasure.
He had all the reading material one man could handle. Theo raised his eyes over his glasses and shook his head in wonder at the overflowing mailbags that flanked his desk. The British postman had estimated that nearly two thousand letters had come addressed to Theo in the last two weeks. As many as fifty a day were still pouring in—letters from Berlin and Hamburg and Munich; letters from Vienna and Salzburg; postmarks from the mutilated Republic of Czechoslovakia and from faraway Warsaw:
Dear Herr Lindheim, as a young man I worked for the great Lindheim’s Department Store in Berlin. . . .
Dear Herr Lindheim, we saw your photograph with much amazement here in Germany. It was thought that you were dead. . . .
Dear . . . since my mother was a long-time employee, we were hoping you could . . .
The consulate decrees that we must have a sponsor before we can have a visa. . . .
By a miracle we saw your photograph, and once again we have hope that you might help us. Our father worked in the haberdasher department from 1925 until . . .
It is with much hope that we write you . . .
Two thousand letters. All different, yet all the same. Desperate. Hopeful. Terrified. The letters asked Theo for help in acquiring a sponsor so that immigration might be allowed.
Ironically, the Nazi press was responsible for the flood of communication Theo faced. A photograph showing Theo with former Czech President Beneš as they had arrived in England had only rated a back-page space in the London Times. The Nazis, however, had splashed the “traitor-Jew” Lindheim’s face across the front page of every official propaganda sheet in the Reich.
Along with Theo’s photograph with Beneš, Der Stürmer devoted an entire page to a violent attack on the Lindheims. The story described how the famous Berlin department store had grown from a little peddler’s shop through typical Jewish trickery and fraud. Theo was described as a “Jewish extortioner” who “exploited his Gentile employees and seduced young Aryan salesgirls.” A picture of the famous store façade was shown with its closing sales signs in the windows. “This is how the Jew sucks profits from the Aryan public,” the caption cried. Beneath that, the address of the British consulate was given so that letters might be written to extradite this Jewish criminal back to the justice of the Reich from where he lived regally in London on the stolen money of the German workers he had exploited!
The response to the Nazi request for justice had been overwhelming. The letters had come by the tens and by the hundreds to the British consulate. But along with Nazi indignation, two thousand pleas for help had also managed to reach Theo Lindheim in this little house in London:
Herr Lindheim . . . Perhaps you will not remember me. I have managed to escape Berlin and now I am in Warsaw. Life is very difficult. . . .
We fear for our lives here in Hamburg. Each day it grows more violent. . . .
They broke my mother’s nose in the market. . . .
My father and brother have been arrested. . . .
If only you could send a letter on our behalf. . . .
We pray that we might go to Palestine. Not to be a burden but only to . . .
Might you use your connections to help me, Herr Lindheim? Once I worked in the shoe department and if you remember . . .
The German Reich had not expected such a response. The British consulate forwarded the mail faithfully to Theo even as it considered the fierceness of Nazi wrath against him in the letters that flooded in.
Theo Lindheim had never been a man to straddle a fence. Now, it seemed, that attribute carried over into public attitudes about him as well. Theo was a much-hated man in Germany. He was also a man much loved and trusted. Whatever was England supposed to do with such an enigma?
Theo Lindheim worked far into the night. A pool of light from his desk lamp encircled piles of correspondence, newspaper clippings, and Theo’s open Bible.
Anna did not knock as she entered her husband’s study with a tray of cookies and a kettle of steaming tea. “Almost finished, Theo?” she asked quietly, mindful that their sons slept in the next room.
He shook his head slowly, then removed his reading glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. “Not finished. Probably will never finish.” He spoke in short choppy sentences as if the effort of speaking was too great at such an hour. “It will not end, Anna. We are at war. At war, you see.” He laid his hand over the Bible.
Anna placed the tray on a coffee table laden with books and files of correspondence. The rim of light touched the letter from Am
erica that Elisa herself had delivered to Theo. The letter was from Trudence Rosenfelt. Bubbe. Anna picked it up and began to read softly.
I am an old woman. I have no delusions that my life will go on forever. Indeed, I pray that when my usefulness is at an end, my life will also come to an end. That moment has not yet come to relieve me of the grief I feel over the loss of my dear ones. And so I continue to work, to live, so that their precious lives might also have meaning. So that their deaths might somehow awaken the consciences of good people in every nation. For this reason I ask for your help. . . .
Anna lowered the page. Her eyes met Theo’s.
He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “They are only numbers. Meaningless numbers among the millions, Anna. And the nations say there are too many to help. So it seems they are expendable.” He winced. “But each life is precious. As precious and beautiful as the family that old woman lost. Ah, Anna, what can we do?”
He held up yet another letter. This one bore the official seal of the British colonial office. Within its neatly typed lines was the request—the order—that Theo and Anna Lindheim, as guests of the British government, restrain themselves from any activities on behalf of illegal immigrants.
“They have tied our hands,” Theo concluded. Ignoring this “request” would no doubt result in their expulsion from Great Britain, possibly even a deportation to Germany. “We have Wilhelm and Dieter to think about. Our own family. We cannot share this burden with Elisa. Not now. She deserves some time of happiness before . . . ” His voice faded. He wanted to say “before war comes,” but he did not. “She needs this time,” he finished simply.
Anna poured two cups of tea. Her eyes were full of sympathy for Theo’s feeling of helplessness. Had she not felt the same impotence in Prague? Had God not given her a vision, a way to reach out in the midst of such darkness?
“Theo.” She managed a sad smile. “Those people, the numbers you speak of, they are each precious in the sight of God. The very hairs of our heads are numbered—so it is written. We must only be willing to dedicate our hands to the service of God’s love. Then He will assign our tasks to us. We must not be overwhelmed by the vastness of the problem, sweet husband.”
A touch of sugar. A drop of cream. Theo sipped his tea and considered the truth of Anna’s words for a long time. This was the Covenant. God would not refuse the prayer of a willing heart! Theo had learned this much in the hell of Dachau, where men became numbers—still loved by God, yet mere numbers to the Nazis.
“I alone survived that place,” Theo whispered. Anna understood his words. “Like Bubbe Rosenfelt, I alone survived. There must be some reason. Some reason why I am here to sip tea with you in London, Anna, while the rest of our world suffers so needlessly.”
“The Lord will untie your hands, Theo, when your hands are ready. Rested. Strong again. Until then we will watch and pray together that we will make a difference even to one among the millions.”
***
Ernst vom Rath felt the presence of danger at his back as he boarded the Paris subway nearest the German Embassy in Paris. He tried not to peer over his shoulder. What would he see, anyway? The faces of a thousand weary Parisians traveling home after work. If he was being followed by Gestapo—and he was almost certain of the fact—his pursuer would wear the face of a Frenchman. Frayed coat. Black beret. Shoes run down at the heels. Everyone on the crowded train felt like the enemy. Ernst disciplined himself not to look, not to guess who it might be.
He held the leather strap as the buzzer shrilled its warning. Doors slid shut with a loud crash. Wheels clacked against the tracks, and lights in the tunnel passed with a strobe effect over the faces of the commuters.
Ernst did not even know where he was going. Had he even bothered to consult the marquee? He had not thought beyond leaving the embassy building for a few hours; escaping the tortured reminders of how Thomas had killed Georg Wand. Ernst was just as guilty as Thomas. They had whispered their treason together before the votive candles of Notre Dame. They had gazed out over Paris from the observation platform of the Eiffel Tower. They had not spoken of Paris, however. Their thoughts had been directed to Berlin. Their hopes had taken the shape of plans for an end of the Nazi stranglehold over their people and their land.
A voice crackled over the speaker. “Metro L’Opera.” Doors popped and slid open even before the train came to a full stop. Ernst pushed through the crowd and stepped from the train. He had no reason for disembarking here. He felt himself flush with the memory that here, at the opera, Thomas had killed Georg Wand. Why have I come here? He backed up a step as crowds surged around him. He turned as if to reboard. Too late! The doors slammed in his face. He spun around again and followed the hundreds up the steep stairs to the diminishing light of dusk and the bustle of the broad avenue that faced the ornate opera building.
Vom Rath mopped his brow. Here in the chilly autumn evening there was no physical reason for the beads of perspiration on his brow. He stopped at a newsstand and pretended to peruse the racks of postcards. Pretended that he was not drawn with morbid fascination to the place where Thomas had killed Georg Wand.
“You would like a picture postcard, monsieur?” asked an aging, stoop-shouldered vendor as Ernst passed his fingers absently over a card bearing the image of the Eiffel Tower. We stood just here, Thomas and I. We talked of hope for Germany without Hitler. He told me about the girl he had loved.
“Monsieur?” the vendor asked again. “Three for the price of two.”
Ernst dug in his pocket, paid the man, and slipped the postcards into his coat. He raised his eyes to the building where the greatest musicians of Europe played, regardless of their race. And he remembered the reason Thomas had killed Georg Wand. He raised his chin slightly as the cold breeze stung his cheeks. Taking a place at a dusty outdoor table in a nearly deserted café, Ernst pulled out his pen and began to write. He prayed that if he must also die, death would come quickly; that he would not have a chance to betray anyone.
A postcard to mother. One to my sister. They must know that I love them. That I think of them.
The last postcard he addressed to another opera house—in London.
***
“Friday again, Rebbe Lebowitz,” Hannah Cohen hailed the old rabbi as he hurried past the steps of Tipat Chalev. “Any word about your daughter, Etta, in Warsaw? You are a grandfather again yet?” Hannah swept the steps, although there was no sign of even a speck of dust.
The old man shrugged. “The child will be two months old and reciting Torah before I hear any word,” he replied with a grimace. “Still—” he held up his weekly offering to the mailbox—“you see I have a letter to mail, nu? Every week it is the same—I beg them to come home to Jerusalem, and they send me clippings about how terrible it is here!”
“Things are better in Warsaw, I ask you?” Hannah leaned on her broom as Rabbi Lebowitz paused.
“At least here it is not so cold in the autumn.”
“Give me a nice Muslim neighbor any day. Compared to those Catholic anti-Semites in Warsaw the Muslims are saints!” The old woman raised her eyes toward heaven, as if she could visualize Muslim saints flying above her. Then her expression changed from benevolence to one of disapproval. “Oy! Gottenyu! Rebbe Lebowitz,” she cried and pointed the broom skyward. “They’re burning rubber tires again!”
The old man’s gaze followed the upraised broom to where a dense cloud of black smoke billowed up from Allenby Square. “So much for Muslim saints.” He scratched his head and grimaced down at his envelope. “The mailing will have to wait, I suppose, until the British soldiers put the fire out. But then again, it’s only a little smoke. Better to mail it.”
“Phui! Such a stink! Oy gevalt! Why don’t these Arabs burn something else beside old tires for a change?” She waved her hand in front of her nose and then rushed into Tipat Chalev to slam down the windows.
The old man stared up at the first cloud of smoke and then back to where another and
yet another cloud rose up to blacken the bright morning above the city. He clucked his tongue in disappointment and coughed at the stench that now pervaded everything.
He resented this. He resented this more than the closing of Arab shops in the marketplace. More than Muslim chants from the Haram. These stinking black clouds would soil the wash on every clothesline, make every bite of food unpalatable, spread a film of coarse black residue on every roof and step and stick of furniture in Jerusalem.
Will these Arab children never run out of old tires to burn? the rabbi wondered.
Hannah poked her head out of the door. Black ash was falling. “All over my steps!” she cried. And then, “You had better not mail your letter today, Rebbe Lebowitz. Looks like the biggest fire is just in Allenby Square.”
The old man waved away her warning with a gnarled hand. These tire burnings presented little chance of danger. With such a stink in the air, even the most militant Arab also was forced to retreat indoors to wait until the fires died.
Rabbi Lebowitz covered his head and face with his coat and trudged on as shop grates slammed around him and furious Armenian shopkeepers rescued their displays of merchandise from the street.
Every native of Jerusalem knew that this murky display was for the benefit of the pristine English lords who traveled to Palestine with their notebooks open. Of everything they would see, nothing would make an impression on them as profound as these heaping mounds of burning rubber. Smoke and fire. This was the image they would take home with them to England.
Such foolishness, Lord. True? Of course true. The rabbi shook his head.
Just so no one missed the point, flaming tire bonfires would also blacken the skies of other cities in Palestine. Haifa, Jaffa—anywhere there were English eyes to see and English noses to smell.