by Bodie Thoene
Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol was laid aside, probably until next year.
Presents did not matter. The lights on the tree in Red Lion House seemed dim compared to the joy of the reunion of these two sisters. And yet, tears were shed there as well. One of the Ibsen family was here, one of four faces in the photograph on Anna’s piano. This reality, like a white-hot flame, turned their joy into a molten gold . . . beautiful and bright, but still untouchable.
Murphy thought they should call a doctor, but Helen asked only to be taken to the home of Anna and Theo. She would be fine, she said. She was only tired, very tired.
The three of them left and it was bedtime for Charles and Louis. There would be presents in the morning, Elisa promised after prayers, because they were very good boys.
Long after the lights had gone out, Charles lay awake in his bed.
“Louis?” he said softly.
“I’m awake too,” Louis answered.
“Thinking?”
“Uh-huh. I was thinking about what surprise I want on Christmas morning. How about you?”
“I would like to see our mama again,” Charles said. But he knew that miracles only happened sometimes, and this one would not be there when they awoke in the morning.
***
The teakettle shrieked. Helen turned toward it as though she had never heard that ordinary sound before. The thick blond hair beneath the scarf was matted; dirty. Anna ran a hot bath for her and brought her tea to sip in the tub.
Clean clothes were laid out for her—a pretty blue dress that matched her eyes, real stockings, and slippers for her feet until new shoes could be purchased for her. She bathed and dressed.
For a long time Helen did not speak. She wept in Anna’s arms and then sat quietly as she tried to remember everything that had happened since the night of November 9. And after she remembered, how could she sort it all out?
“I’m sorry, Anna.” She sat up and wiped her eyes. “It has just been so long. A miracle, I suppose, that I am here. A miracle. But I would rather be back there with my children, and with Karl, you see.”
Walking through Helen Ibsen’s ordeal took a long time. First came the terrible night in New Church, the last time she saw Karl, and her arrest with all the others the next morning. Lori escaped, she thought, as did the Kalner boys. Again and again the Gestapo asked her where Lori was. She said she did not know, and they beat her until her back was bloody.
She showed Anna the still-pink scars of the lash. “But I prayed, Anna!” she said in a soft whisper. “I remembered the Lord and his silence. And I prayed.”
Weeks in a cell had followed and then, without explanation, she had been released with three prostitutes—simply given her coat and her papers and turned out on the street.
“New Church is condemned. Leona Kalner has disappeared.” A strange smile played on her lips. “It was so easy to leave Germany; it had to be a mistake. My papers were all in order. I caught the train to Prague. I hoped . . . we had told the children to go to the Protestant home in Prague.” Tears came again. “But they were not there. No one has heard from them. Oh, Anna, if they made it out, they would have gone to Prague!”
A series of small miracles had resulted in a visitor’s visa to England. Helen was not Jewish, and she was the wife of a pastor. The British consulate had granted her a temporary visitor’s visa the first afternoon. From there she got Anna’s address and borrowed ship fare from a pastor in Prague. “I came on a freighter. I have not got enough money left to pay for a cup of tea.”
Anna pulled her into her arms. Anna had not let herself believe that they would ever meet again on this earth. “You do not need money for tea, Helen. You must stay here. We will do everything we can. And we will pray!”
***
“Hey, Moshe, Zach, get a load of this!” Larry Havas sounded excited as he ran toward them, waving a scrap of notebook paper.
“What is it? Some news about Captain Orde?” asked Moshe.
“Have they made him king of Palestine or something?” kidded Zabinski. He stopped joking when he saw the grim look on Havas’s face.
“What is it really?” asked Moshe again.
“Judith was monitoring British military radio traffic and she picked this up: Part of an army convoy was diverted to investigate the report of an explosion in an Arab village.”
“So this is news?” demanded Zach. “Some Arab making pipe bombs has blown himself up?”
“Shut up and let him finish! Go on, Larry,” instructed Moshe.
“The unit that checked it out found what was left of a car, but there wasn’t anybody in it or around it.”
Zach looked concerned. “And this was on the route Captain Orde would have been traveling?”
“That’s just it: Orde had been traveling with that convoy until he reached the Hanita turnoff; he should have reached here by now!”
***
The first light of Christmas morning crept over the damp cemetery of New Church. Jacob cautiously raised the stone hatch to peer out and listen. He was grateful for the fresh air. He sucked it into his lungs voraciously, as though he had been under water for a long time.
Only hours had passed since their detection by the watchman, and yet it seemed much longer than that. Jacob had thought they would be well on their way across the border to Poland by now. But here they were, a few dozen yards from where they had begun, and in a much worse place than they had started from.
The advantage they had hoped to gain by leaving in the midst of a rally was now gone. Although all government buildings stayed open on Christmas Day, most of the shops closed their doors in some remembrance of Christmas Past. Traffic would be light. Chance of detection would be greater today than ever. Although Jacob could not see clearly from this place, he could hear the vague murmur of voices. There were still searchers around New Church.
Maybe tonight, he thought, letting the hatch slide down quietly into place. Maybe tonight they could sneak through the hole in the fence, separate, and meet at Pastor Ibsen’s car!
***
Alfie played with the kittens and let Lori and Jacob talk. He was polite, like Mama taught him. He did not interrupt while Lori and Jamie argued with Jacob.
“We cannot take him with us,” Jacob sounded angry.
“We cannot leave him here!” Lori’s anger matched his.
“Maybe we cannot get out of here, either,” whispered Jamie fearfully.
“We’ll get out, all right.” Jacob made a fist. “If they haven’t found us now, they won’t find us. We’ll sneak out and follow our plan.”
“We are taking Alfie,” Lori said again.
“He is not in the plan.” Jacob stared at Alfie. “Look at him. Sitting there with his kittens. He doesn’t even know what we are talking about.”
“If we leave him here, it is murder.”
“To take him is suicide. There is too much at stake to take along this Dummkopf.”
Jamie stood up and clenched his fists as if he wanted to fight Jacob. “Take it back!”
“Well, what else—” Jacob raised his hand to hold back Jamie’s hitting.
“Shhhh,” Alfie warned them when they got too loud! Maybe the men were still out there.
Jamie and Jacob looked at him. They lowered their voices again.
“He is smarter than you think,” Jamie said. “And he saved our lives. Your life. If you leave him, you are leaving me and Lori, too, because we won’t go without him. My father wouldn’t leave him, I know that much! He would say that it is a miracle that Alfie was there to open the gate for us! And you don’t spit in the eye of a miracle!”
Silence. Joseph the cat purred as Alfie petted her. Maybe it was time for Alfie to tell them about the angels and also about the grocery store. Which first?
“You have to be careful, Jamie,” Alfie said, now that it was his turn. “The Nazi-men are looking for you.”
“How do you know that?” Jacob asked, a frown on his face.
�
�I went to a store to buy food, and the grocery man asked questions about you. Then he called the police and I heard them talking. They talked a long time. Don’t go to the train station. Or the bus. They were going to pick you and Lori up.” Lori grew pale and Jacob sat up straight. He smiled at her and raised his eyebrows as if he knew something she did not know.
Jacob stared at Alfie. “Maybe you’re not a Dummkopf after all.”
The words were mean, Alfie thought, but the sound of Jacob’s voice was not.
Jacob sighed. “All right, then. Alfie is our miracle. We won’t spit in his eye. We will take him, God help us.”
Alfie was glad. “God will help us.” And then he told them about the angels who told him to open the gate.
34
Plan for Escape
Lucy awoke to the quiet gurgling of a baby. For a moment she could not remember where she was, and then it came to her with a flash of fear. Christmas morning! She had not gone home to Wolf last night. Surely by now he knew what she had done!
Strong, bitter coffee helped Lucy think. Cradling the cup in both hands, she inhaled the aroma. Somehow it calmed her. The girl, Marlene, begged her to forgive her for leaving the note. Strangely, Lucy felt no animosity. The child had simply forced Lucy to a final decision—a decision to do something good for the first time in too long.
“Wolf knows who you are—” She leveled her eyes on Karin. “Wallich, isn’t it? Karin Wallich?”
Karin replied with a single slow nod. Had Lucy ever seen such depth of sorrow in any woman’s eyes? Such a look marked the face of Mary, the mother of Christ in the fresco above the altar of Lucy’s church in Bavaria. Such a thought crowded out all other thoughts. She imagined shouting at Wolf that he was hunting down the family of Christ! In the eyes of Karin Wallich, Lucy found the woman at the foot of the cross, watching the torture of the innocent.
“Fräulein Strasburg?” Madame Singer touched her gently, as if to draw her back into the present moment.
Lucy sipped her coffee. She must not let herself slip into such fantasies. They made her want to cry out how sorry she was for what was being done! Such images made her want to beg forgiveness. Like the prostitute Mary Magdalene, she longed to step into the fresco to weep beside the mother of the Lord. It is the strain of the day, she reasoned.
“Where was I?” Lucy pressed a finger to her temple.
“I am Karin Wallich,” Karin replied. “And they know it.”
“Yes.” Lucy cleared her throat. “Wolf figured that out. And from there he came to the conclusion that Otto Wattenbarger was a friend of your husband. To arrest you and be able to condemn Otto as a traitor all in one day, Wolf will do whatever is necessary.”
“We are not caught yet,” Peter said.
“Thanks to you, Fräulein Strasburg,” added Karin gently.
How kind and grateful were Karin Wallich’s eyes. Lucy could not meet her gaze or respond to her thanks. “You are not safe yet. Please. You are only across the street. We must get you out of Vienna. Out of the Reich.”
“Perhaps we can find a way to place the children on the transport list,” Frau Singer offered.
“No. He will be checking every list.” Lucy frowned. “Do you have your papers, Frau Wallich?”
Karin produced them, the old documents—the Wallich name, the photographs, the enormous J for Jews inscribed across the pages of the passport. “This is hopeless. You would be better off to burn these than to carry them.”
“Otto took our photographs.” Karin blinked back tears at the memory. “But no passports. He was going to . . . what does it matter now?”
Lucy opened her handbag and pulled out five tickets, train tickets from Vienna to Berlin, Berlin to Danzig. “Maybe . . . if we could find some other way to get you to Berlin. Catch the train there. Then it would not matter so much if you carry Jewish documents as long as they are in order. But Wolf will have men on every train platform looking for Karin Wallich. And Peter and Marlene. And Willie.”
“Tickets to Danzig!” Peter touched one on the corner as though it were a ticket to Paradise. “I have dreamed about a ticket to Danzig.” He said wistfully. “And there it is. Magic. But no good to us.”
“We can thank my dear Wolf for the tickets. I hocked his rugs at the Dorotheum to buy—”
“Hey!” Peter sparked and fumbled in his wallet. “Here it is. Otto gave this to me the night after you and Wolf showed up.” He flashed it around the small circle of intense faces.
“A pawn ticket.” Lucy took it from him. “Dorotheum. I guess I am not the only one.”
“But you see,” Peter explained, “Otto said if something happens to him—which it has—that I am supposed to go to the Dorotheum with this.” He spread the fold of his wallet to display the bills. “The Nazis keep it open even on Christmas Day.”
Lucy shook her head. “Yes, but there are Gestapo agents at every entrance picking up Jews right and left.” She bit her lip. “I will go. If he has me arrested, you will have my train tickets. Somehow, maybe—”
“But, Fräulein—” Karin started to protest.
“You really should call me Lucy. We are in this thing together, Karin. Don’t worry. Wolf will not have me killed. Not even tortured, I think. I am carrying his child, an SS baby. If I do not come back, you must remember that and not worry. He wants this baby, you see.”
***
“If he’s coming, he will have to understand!” Jacob paced the small space like an angry schoolmaster.
“Well, at least talk nice to him,” Lori said.
“I am talking nice.” Jacob inclined his head with mock graciousness to Alfie, who was trying very hard to understand the plan of escape. “Aren’t I being nice, Alfie?” He did not wait for a reply. “All right, now. For the tenth time, tell me how it works, Alfie. Go ahead. Repeat it!”
Alfie’s brow furrowed in thought. He wanted very much to get it right. “The train,” he said doubtfully.
“Yes, yes, yes, and what about the train?”
“It will come to the border?”
“Yes. It will stop at the border check on the German side of the big fence.” Jacob swept his hand over Alfie like a musical conductor pulling the notes from his orchestra.
“And what will happen on the German side of the fence?” Lori gently urged.
Alfie smiled at her. He liked it better when she asked him questions. “Nazi-men with guns and dogs will look all over the train inside and outside for people who try and sneak by. Yes?”
“Good, Alfie!” Lori said. Then she shot Jacob a hard look.
“And then they will open the big electric gate and the train will go through very slowly . . . ”
“Yes”—Jacob resumed again—“into no-man’s land. And as the train slips through, we must each roll under the train and grab the metal rods on the bottom. Hold on very tightly, and it will carry us into no-man’s land.”
Alfie nodded his head enthusiastically. It was a dangerous game, like jumping onto a trolley, but he could do it!
“And then the train will stop inside the no-man’s-land, because there is another big electric fence on the Polish side!”
“Very good! And then what happens?” Jacob was looking relieved. Alfie seemed to have grasped their plan at last!
“When the train stops in no-man’s-land, the Nazi guards get off the train and the Polish guards get on, yes?”
“Yes! And we slip on the train when the doors are open! Then the doors will be sealed, and the train will start up, and the Polish gate will open! We will ride all the way to Danzig in the bathrooms!”
Lori put a hand on Alfie’s arm. “Now you see why we cannot take your kittens, Alfie! They would be hurt.”
He looked at the kitten box and then at Werner kitty. “Except for Werner. I have to take Werner because he will die if I leave him. Jacob promised I could take Werner!”
“Don’t get him upset,” Jacob ordered Lori. “Why did you have to bring up the cats again?”
&nb
sp; This addition of another person to their plans caused Jacob to want to rehearse everything again—walking to the car, seating arrangements, the trip out of Berlin on the Autobahn. He rummaged through his knapsack in search of the road map. There were train schedules and a street map of Berlin and Danzig, but the road map was missing.
“The map!” he muttered angrily. “Where is it? Mark, did you do something with the map?”
No one had seen it since their last rehearsal. Somehow it had not made it out of New Church with the rest of the gear. Lori consoled him that perhaps it did not matter anyway, since he could probably sketch the entire map of northern Germany and then across Poland to Danzig by heart!
Jacob did not tell her that he had never driven farther than a few blocks in the city with his father, and around the Tiergarten Lanes after begging his mother to let him get behind the wheel. Somehow, staring at the straight wide lines of the Autobahn on the road map had made him feel more confident. Just get on the Autobahn and drive straight to the border . . .
Yes, he had it all memorized, but all the same the road map had been the closest thing to having his father sit beside him when he drove.
Jacob sat on the stone seat like the statue of The Thinker. He hoped the others could not see how frightened their leader was as the minutes ticked toward departure. He had put it off for weeks, but suddenly there was no more putting it off. Key. Clutch. Gear. Starter. Gas. Autobahn . . . They all believed he could do it, map or no map!
***
Lucy drew a deep breath to bolster her courage as she stepped out of Frau Singer’s shop. The curbside where Gestapo cars had been parked was vacant, and the line for the streetcar was short. She climbed aboard and paid her fare, then sat to watch Vienna slide past as though in a dream.
Every policeman and every uniform on the street seemed a threat. She fixed her lipstick and brushed her hair, trying to act normal. She practiced a quick smile in her compact mirror and prayed that no one would see on the outside that her insides were churning like a paddle wheel on a Danube River steamer.