by Bodie Thoene
“Signals?”
“Yes. Mother thinks it is part of the lesson, you see.” Deborah lowered her voice. “Mother can’t tell one note from another.” Her lips turned up in a sly smile. “So I send Harry messages. In code. I learned it from his Scout handbook.”
Anna rather liked this new twist in the concept of music as the language of the heart. “And what sort of messages do you send?”
Deborah’s eyes brightened; her face grew firm with determination and expertise. “You see, two dots, like this—” She banged hard twice on middle C. “That is the letter I You see?”
Anna nodded. She was impressed—at least interested. “Go on.”
“Four dots—” Deborah banged four times on the key of D. “That is the letter H. You see?”
The letter A was a dot and a dash. T was one dash only. E was one dot. Put all together, the message was I HATE . . . Deborah went to spell out two more complete words, PIANO LESSONS.
She could also signal things like, MOTHER IS A CRANK TODAY, and ONLY TEN MORE MINUTES AND I CAN GET UP. The potential for communication on the piano was endless, much better than the other instruments that merely squeaked and did not cooperate at all with Deborah’s skill as a telegrapher.
At Anna’s urging, the child went forward through the entire alphabet, then as Anna played a series of Chords in the treble clef, Deborah repeated the performance on one note with skill and undeniable talent. The result was a new composition, impromptu, and quite nice in its simplicity—something bordering on a simple jazz tune. Anna laughed and said she knew an American jazz trio who might perform Deborah’s remarkable new song.
Half an hour later, Mrs. Harding-Smith returned to fetch her daughter. Anna and Deborah treated her to a duet, a jazz composition called, “Telegraph Alphabet.”
The mother laughed and cried and blew her nose loudly into her handkerchief. No matter that Deborah played one note only during the course of the song! Her child had at last discovered her forte! She was a prodigy in the true sense of the word!
Anna Lindheim closed the door behind her departing pupil and the ecstatic mother. She sank down into a chair with a sigh of great contentment. At last she had helped Deborah Harding-Smith find her true calling. No doubt the child would grow up to operate a telegraph key for Western Union.
***
The storm passed, leaving behind an unusually clear night. Brittle starlight outlined the silhouette of Parliament. Such grand beauty only reinforced the notion of those who believed, like Chamberlain, that Britain was the center of the universe. Beyond the boundaries of her mighty empire, the stars seemed dull in comparison.
Tonight Theo and Murphy donned their formal dinner jackets. Anna and Elisa dressed in elegant evening gowns. Charles and Louis eyed them with childish envy and sat sulking in their pajamas beside the radio.
Freddie Frutschy and his wife Hildy came up the steps precisely at seven o’clock from their newly refurbished apartment on the ground floor.
Charles loved Freddie, of course. So did Louis. And they also liked Hildy very much. Hildy was also from Germany, but that had been a long time ago, she explained in English. She spoke English with an accent much worse than the freshest immigrant, and yet she refused to speak German to the boys. “Great Britain my home ist. Und English now I am speaking!” Hildy was very happy in the new apartment, happy to work as housekeeper while Freddie doubled as bodyguard and chauffeur for the household. “Und happy she vas to sit on the babies also,” she declared.
As pleasant in temper as Freddie, Hildy had wispy gray hair, braided and woven like pretzels on her head. Her face and figure were both round. She wore false teeth, which clicked and clacked in her mouth whenever she spoke her garbled brand of English.
The couple filled the doorway. “Ach, Eleeeza! Beautiful you ist tonight! Never mind you the boys about. Tonight a fine time ve ist having for sure!”
Charles could hardly understand a word she said. He imagined that her mouth was something like a telegraph key, and if he could only learn Morse code, everything would suddenly make sense in her exclamations of ticks and tocks and dots and dashes. In the meantime, no German would she speak, and her brand of English was undecipherable.
The two boys reluctantly rose and gloomily embraced the two elegantly dressed couples. Hildy dashed off to tune in the BBC to her favorite radio program. “A pathetic British imitation of a pathetic American soap opera,” Murphy had described the show.
Elisa cupped Charles’s face in her hands and leveled her clear blue eyes at his. “Don’t send us away unhappy, Charles,” Elisa whispered. “Tonight is a very important night. You must be happy for us to go to this meeting. Maybe we will be able to help those children we dreamed about. When you say your prayers tonight . . . ”
“I will,” he agreed. No need to say more. He knew enough about this topic that he could tell the grown-ups a thing or two. But tonight they were doomed to stay home and listen to Hildy’s radio programs until eight o’clock when they would be sentenced to bed by the extension of her stubby finger and a series of garbled clacks. “But I wish I could come too.”
At that, a sympathetic Freddie hoisted Charles up on one broad shoulder and then Louis on the other. “Ah, come on, lads,” he said. “We fellows’ll leave the old woman to ’er BBC whilst we play with the tin soldiers, eh?”
Charles could touch the ceiling when he sat on Freddie’s shoulder. Life seemed much more pleasant from such a great height.
***
The dinner party at the London home of Dr. Chaim Weizmann had an impressive guest list. Several sympathetic members of Parliament were in attendance with their wives—including Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, and Harold Nicolson, who were known for their opposition to the Chamberlain appeasement policies. Weizmann, dressed in his black dinner jacket and stroking his scholarly goatee, leaned in to whisper in Theo’s ear.
“There they are.” He nodded his head toward the English politicians. “Our jury.”
By this, Theo understood that every other guest had been invited to testify. Theo, in addition to his internment in a Nazi prison camp, had seen much in Berlin on Kristal Nacht. Anna had firsthand experience with the thousands of homeless refugees in Prague. Elisa had lived through the horrors of Vienna and could also testify as to the desperation of the children of Germany as seen through the lives of Charles and Louis Kronenberger. As for Murphy, he was an American. His perspective completed the circle of world opinion in favor of the rescue of the Jews of Germany. The roll call of witnesses included other prominent refugees from Hitler’s new Reich. In all, a dozen Englishmen and an equal number of witnesses attended.
Testimony was given one on one as members of the jury were placed strategically between witnesses. The clatter of conversation hummed throughout each course of the meal, and Dr. Weizmann presided regally at the head of the long table. There was no need for him to direct the conversation. In an hour, over prime rib and Yorkshire pudding, more factual information was passed along than in several days of official meetings.
Over dessert and coffee, the discussion became more focused. Harold Nicolson, British writer, back-bench member of Commons, and staunch backer of Anthony Eden, spoke first.
“We are simply outnumbered,” he said simply. “On both sides, labor and conservative, the debate was clearly sympathetic, but pathetic as far as the will to do anything at all.”
Winston Churchill puffed on his cigar and morosely swirled his whiskey in his glass. “I heard the figure of ten thousand children from Germany and Austria mentioned. We took in as many from Belgium in the late war.” His lower lip extended in thought. “You must not allow yourselves to be backed into a corner of anachronistic talk about moral responsibility and past obligations of Great Britain,” he warned. “Talk is cheap.”
“And that is coming from our finest orator,” Anthony Eden quipped.
A twittering of polite laughter subsided into silence as the guests waited for Churchill to finish. Murphy conte
mplated the slouched bulk of the bulldog statesman with amusement and respect. He was, in physical appearance, the exact opposite of the handsome and dapper Anthony Eden. But both men shared the same views and the same disdain for the appeasers.
Churchill continued. “Lord Halifax—” he cleared his throat as if the name had stuck there—“has quite bluntly defined the interest of the government in ensuring that the Arab states would be friendly to us. In other words, we must not only invite the devil to tea, but must serve up our friends to him on his plate.”
“And our children,” remarked Weizmann.
“Yes.” Churchill cocked a watery eye at the leaders of Zionism. “If this goes unchallenged, then you might as well return forever to London and build a house with three floors in it. One could house the government of smashed Austria. The second, the government of Czechoslovakia. And the third, all your hopes of a Jewish homeland.”
“Well and good, Winston,” added Eden, “but what is to be done?”
“This meeting between the Arabs and the Zionists has been called to give the appearance that the government is really doing all it can do to maintain the peace in Palestine. They are, in fact, giving the Mufti everything he wants, like Hitler in Munich. Therefore, I could recommend that the Zionists refuse to attend unless the rescue of ten thousand children in Germany is immediately undertaken.” He nodded toward Murphy. “Such a reckless gamble should be widely publicized, of course, to demonstrate the desperation of the cause.”
Silence filled the room. It was indeed a desperate move. To boycott such a meeting could mean losing everything. “There are seven hundred thousand Jews in the Reich,” added one distinguished scholar from Heidelberg. “Only ten thousand?”
“It is the very number mentioned in the Commons debate,” Theo interjected. He understood the reasoning behind the figure. “We will simply quote that number back to Chamberlain and Halifax as the number they mentioned.”
Churchill raised a thick finger. “And as the number of children rescued from Belgium in the Great War, it is a precedent. We must ask ourselves if our fathers were more moral and decent than we are.” At that he smiled briefly, knowingly, then sank back into the enjoyment of his reeking cigar.
Perhaps there was a method in the madness, after all. To rescue ten thousand was something, anyway. It was still not a Jewish homeland, still not a standing-room-only Zionist state. But it was ten thousand lives.
***
The other guests had left two hours earlier. The mantel clock in Chaim Wiezmann’s study chimed two a.m. Cigar smoke hung in a thick haze across the room.
Muprhy’s eyes sagged, heavy with sleep, as the conversation continued. Only Winston Churchill seemed entirely awake. Theo looked exhausted but attentive. Anna rested her head against his arm. Elisa looked pale and thoughtful as she listened to Winston’s plan. She turned down Mrs. Weizmann’s offer of the spare bedroom. The Lindheims were a family of concert musicians, she explained. Late nights were a way of life.
“Censorship in the Reich is a difficult problem.” Churchill cocked his head toward Murphy, who could only nod his agreement. “How long did they keep your reporter locked up?”
“Three days. And now his reports are about the new construction sites and autobahns. Nothing meaningful. His phone is tapped. Every word coming out of Germany is screened by propaganda officials; photographs as well. Anyone transgressing the rules of the press is liable to be arrested and executed as a spy.” Murphy smiled as he thought of Timmons, the ex-sportswriter. “Timmons is not cut out for it.”
“Since we cannot get answers the normal way, the best thing for us to do is to ask questions.” Churchill lifted his chin and stared at the clock. “Time is running short for Europe, Murphy. People seem content to accept Chamberlain’s version of the world. I propose we challenge that version on the radio. A political mystery program, if you will. The Trump Broadcasting version of ‘War of the Worlds.’” He grinned. “We will ask about the fate of individuals, like Anna’s sister, who have vanished, perhaps. And about policies. Nations. The plans of leaders. Questions may stir our people from their apathy.”
“What about the answers?”
“We still have friends behind the gate in Germany. We must put the machinery in place to bring the truth back to us. I have some thoughts about how we might achieve that with the help of a certain piano teacher.” He tapped his cigar on the ash tray. “Let Timmons send his reports about the autobahns. And let Herr Hitler wonder about how TENS gets the answers to our questions so soon. I think the censorship problem is about to be solved, my friends.”
18
The Mouse and the Serpent
Money.
Never before had money been such a concern to Lucy. With enough money, she could break free from Wolf. Without it, Lebensborn became a certainty.
She remembered the whispered concerns of her mother and father as they struggled to feed nine children during the desperate days in Germany before Hitler had brought promise of order and prosperity to the German nation. With so many mouths to feed, Lucy took a job as a housemaid and a waitress, with every pfennig pooled into the family finances. She had never minded giving up her paycheck to help the family. It had seemed natural and right; there were still younger brothers and sisters at home in Bavaria. Even now, Lucy faithfully sent home half of her salary and spent the other half on little luxuries for herself.
She looked at her paycheck. For the first time she would send none of it home to Bavaria. For the first time she would not walk by the shopwindows on the Kärtner Ring and pick out a new hat or handbag or pair of shoes to buy for herself. The check was for a hundred marks: twenty-five dollars a week. Lucy calculated that she would need at least a thousand marks before she dared to leave Wolf. Such a vast sum would take her two and a half months to save, even if she never spent a pfennig for anything!
She sighed and walked into the bank, wondering how she might acquire the needed sum in less than ten weeks.
The bank clerk, a sweet little man with big cow eyes, recognized her and smiled. She had told him about her family back home and the reason for the weekly money order.
“Guten Abend, Fräulein Strasburg.” He pulled out the money-order book automatically. “Will you be sending your usual again this week?”
“No, danke.” She signed off the check and shrugged self-consciously, knowing he would wonder what had happened to make her change her pattern. “This week I will just keep the cash.”
“All of it?” Surprise and concern raised his thick eyebrows in an arch over his brown eyes.
“All of it, danke,” she replied with a smile.
He seemed almost hurt as he tucked away the money-order book. “In cash?” This was most unusual.
“Ja. Danke.” She pretended to study the grain of the marble counter. “Ja,” she said again, searching for a lie that would salve his curiosity. “Mama wants me to send packages home now instead of money. The products here in Vienna are still much better than in Germany,” she added with a conspiratorial whisper. Then she pretended to worry that her words might be overheard. She winked at him, giving him the all-clear. “So. Heil Hitler, ja?”
At this revelation, he brightened, genuinely relieved. He counted out the Reichmarks. “You are a devoted daughter.” He slipped the bills beneath the cage. “Grüss Gott. Until next week then!”
Lucy tucked the bank notes into her handbag and strolled happily out of the bank. She was glad that the little clerk had liked her illusion. If he had known the truth, she mused, he would have said, “You are a faithless lover and a terrible SS mother.”
She let out a sigh of relief. She would pick another line to stand in the next time she came to the bank.
***
At the meeting in the big cathedral there were almost a thousand people, Anna said. Charles wondered if he and Louis counted because they were so short. He hoped that children did not count at the meeting because that would mean there were really a lot more than one-thou
sand.
Men stood at the podium and spoke. Women also seemed angry and determined.
Elisa and the string quartet played music and everyone sang together.
When it was over, stacks of the yellow papers were handed out and places were assigned for people to distribute them. Charles knew that he counted then, because he carried a thick stack of yellow flyers on his arm. He liked helping; it made him feel better.
It was cold this afternoon. He waited at the top of the long stairs that led down into the Trafalgar underground entrance. He and Theo were in charge of the handrail on the UP side of the stairs. Anna and Louis were in charge of the DOWN side.
The policeman told them they could not go down into the tube even though it would have been much warmer than standing out in the wind. There were rules they had to obey about where a person could stand with a petition and how to hand out the handbills. A pastor and four others had been arrested in Blackpool, so everyone had to be careful. The government did not like this, but it was not like Germany. Charles was glad of that.
Crowds pushed up and down the stairs. Most of them looked the other way when Theo and Anna spoke to them. It was cold, after all, and no one wanted to stand outside and sign anything. Charles passed handbills to as many as he could. People folded them and put them in their pockets, and Charles hoped they could read them when they got home by the fire.
A man in a black coat and Homburg hat stopped and put his face close to Charles’. He read the writing on the handbill and smiled a smile that was not altogether nice.
“Would you like to sign?” Theo asked. “For the children.”
“You already got me,” said the man. “But I could use a handful of your leaflets. Put them where they belong.”
Theo thanked him and gave half of Charles’ stack to him. Charles watched him walk down the sidewalk. He paused for a minute, shook his head, and tossed the leaflets into the garbage can. Then he walked quickly away before Theo could reach him.