by Bodie Thoene
Crestfallen, Elisa obeyed. The door groaned on its hinges.
Otto raised his eyes to the barrel of Hugel’s gun but showed no emotion. Elisa watched him, but he did not gasp. He did not frown. He stepped over the threshold as Hugel motioned for him to enter, but even then he did not display surprise or anger or fear.
“Who is this fat cow?” he asked Leah.
“I am Herr Augustus Hugel! Apartment Führer ! I arrest you in the name of the Reich. Heil Hitler!”
“I should have dedicated men on my staff at the Gestapo.” Otto raised his hands as Hugel brandished his weapon menacingly.
“Gestapo!” Hugel appeared surprised. “A traitor? A traitor to the heart! Stand against the wall!” he shouted.
“Apartment Führer? You have missed your calling, Herr Hugel. You would do better in a job like mine.” Otto obeyed.
“Perhaps I will have your job! I know all about everything—these children, the little beast. You are going to take them . . . somewhere.”
“A true Nazi. Listening at keyholes. Congratulations, Hugel. Such diligence will be rewarded.” Otto’s hands were high above his head. He continued to talk calmly. He was looking at the still little figure of Charles as he slept on the floor. “So tell me, now that you have captured our desperate little band, what do you do next?”
“Now I call the Gestapo!” Hugel picked up the telephone in triumph. The phone was dead.
“It has been out of use since the Anschluss,” Leah said.
Hugel threw the receiver onto the floor. “Fine! Mine works perfectly. Come on, come on, all of you. Keep your hands high!” He nudged Charles with his toe, a gesture that brought the first glimmer of anger to Otto’s eyes.
“Leave the boy alone,” Otto warned.
“And what will you do if I don’t?” Hugel chuckled. After all, he was the man with the weapon.
“I will kill you,” Otto said calmly. There was no hint of doubt in his voice.
Hugel chuckled again, this time nervously. He stepped back and opened the door. “Get him!” he said to Otto. “Pick up the freak if you care so much.” With his arms full of the child, Otto would not be quite so ready to kill anyone.
Otto bent down to scoop up Charles. He propped the drowsy child against himself, then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered the boy’s mouth and nose with it. The ragged breath pulled the cloth and then released it as Otto tied it loosely to conceal the cleft.
“Come on!” Hugel spat impatiently. “It is too late to hide the creature’s face!”
Otto raised his eyes to silence the fat man with one deadly, menacing look.
“Pick him up!” Hugel shouted. “And the other one too!”
Louis was asleep where he stood leaning against the wall. Otto gathered him into his arms as well. He held the brothers gently, and for a moment, Elisa looked at the tall, strong man and imagined him as he might have first been. If only . . .
“You first!” Hugel’s face reddened as he screamed at Otto. Moving his prisoners was a bit more complicated than simply standing them against the wall. “Single file!” he commanded, backing toward the door. “One false move, and I mingle the monster’s brains with your own.” He placed the gun to Charles’ head. The child slept in Otto’s arms. Merciful sleep.
Elisa found herself focusing on the tiny fingers draped over Otto’s shoulders. Perfect hands. Hands that one day might have played the violoncello as beautifully as Leah. If only . . .
“Keep your hands above your head!” Hugel stepped all the way back to the banister as they filed out into the corridor.
Otto could not raise his hands with Charles and Louis cradled in his arms. The sight made Hugel feel safe. A gun at the head of a five-year-old in the arms of a man who cared! No one would dare challenge him. Providence had arranged it all. He would go to mass and thank God for this moment. He would give 10 percent of the reward to the offering box.
Leah had not spoken. This was the culmination of all her nightmares. The worst had come to pass, and there were no words to stop it. Nothing to change it. The gun was poised, cocked, and ready at the back of Charles’ head. And yet the child slept peacefully, as if nothing whatever was wrong. He would not live to see the next morning dawn. None of them would. Still he slept in Otto’s arms.
Hugel backed to the stairs. “I will go down first.” He gripped the banister. “No funny business. It is a simple matter of my finger and the trigger.”
They did not argue but shuffled silently after him. He stood facing them. For Hugel, going down stairs had always been easier than going up. But he had never done it backward with prisoners in line before. “No tricks,” he warned again as he jabbed the gun.
Charles stirred.
Then Otto asked the question—a simple question that had no place in this moment. His voice was quiet, as if he was trying not to wake the children. It was gentle, as though Hugel, standing before him at the top of the stairway, were an old and dear friend. “How long has it been since you have been to confession?”
Hugel snorted, furious at the tone of voice, enraged that Otto still did not take the loaded gun seriously. “Confession!”
Otto smiled, and with the ease of taking another step, he drew back his boot and slammed it hard into Hugel’s groin.
Hugel screamed with pain as the force of the blow hurtled his bulk backward. The gun, still in his hand, dangled crazily from his trigger finger and fired, sending a burst of flame into the floor at Hugel’s feet.
Otto whirled and shoved the children into Elisa’s arms as Hugel fought to regain his balance. The rest was simple. One more well-placed kick sent the fat man to his back. Like a log in a shoot, he hurtled down the stairs, screaming all the way. The gun discharged four more times in rapid succession as Hugel’s head slammed against each step. His body gained momentum; his weight propelled him with a velocity that swept him to the bottom of the stairs. He slid across the marble floor, smashing his head into the wall on the far side of the lobby.
Otto stood at the top of the stairs and narrowed his eyes as Hugel twitched for an instant and then lay still. Hugel’s head was cocked to one side and lay against his shoulder. His eyes stared vacantly up toward Otto. The mouth was open in a bizarre grin. Otto was sure that the immense weight of Hugel’s body had snapped his neck.
Doors from other apartments began to open. Shouts and questions filled the hall.
“Herr Hugel has fallen down the stairs!” Otto answered. As voices cried out for an ambulance and others for the police, Otto turned to Leah and Elisa. Each of them held a child. “There is no time. Get what you need.”
He herded them back into the apartment and sorted the documents. “Elisa, you must hand the soldiers this.” He held up the letter. “They will not touch Charles after they read it. Tuberculosis. He’s on his way to a sanitorium. Remember that!”
The halls of the building buzzed with excitement. Every tenant peered over the banister at the body in the lobby.
“What is happening?” Louis raised his head and looked around.
“We are leaving.” Otto took him from Leah’s arms.
Charles woke up then and stretched his arms out to Leah in a final embrace. She hugged him and then picked up the violoncello. He embraced the well-worn case with his eyes. Such beautiful eyes. They asked silently, “Will I ever see you again?”
There was no time to reply now. Otto shook his head at Leah. “You cannot take that.” He opened the door. “We will drive only as far as Kitzbühel. You cannot carry it over the mountains.”
Elisa raised her chin in defiance of this order. “I will take it for her, rather than have her leave it in Austria.”
Now Charles could relax. The question left his face. Vitorio would go with them, and so he must see Leah again! He would find Louis again! One day they would be together. . . .
The little group made their way out through the crowd of gawkers who now surrounded the body in the lobby.
“A foul man . . . �
��
“No doubt drunk again.”
“Not surprising he would clatter down the stairs.”
Around the corner the sirens wailed the approach of Gestapo cars and an ambulance. Hugel still held the gun in his lifeless hand. There would be questions about the death of the Apartment Führer despite the reek of beer on the man.
Elisa could not embrace Leah. No time. No time. They had already shared their moment of farewell. Charles clung to the violin as Elisa carried the cello to her car. Leah, Otto, and Louis slipped around the corner to where Otto’s car waited.
Three Gestapo cars, lights whirling and wailing, screamed past Elisa as she helped Charles into the front seat of the Packard. When she placed Vitorio in the back, the cello seemed to take on the appearance of another person.
Charles peeked over the back of the seat at the uniformed Nazi officials shoving their way into the lobby. It would take a lot of men to lift Herr Hugel, he thought.
Elisa turned the key in the ignition; it coughed and died. She prayed out loud. “Please, God!” The engine coughed and caught with a roar. She ground the gears as the car lurched away from the curb. Yet another police car passed them.
Charles strained his eyes to look past all that to where the taillights of another car receded up the street. He raised his fingers slightly in a wave and watched the lights until they rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.
***
Otto’s car had not even passed beyond the fringes of Vienna before the notice came over his shortwave radio:
“All officers are asked to take special diligence in this matter. Two women, a man, and two boys are sought for questioning by the Gestapo in the matter of the death of a loyal Nazi Party member early this morning. They were seen together right after the—”
Otto switched off the radio.
A now wide-awake Louis leaned forward eagerly to listen to the news. “Were they talking about us, Herr Otto?”
“No,” Otto answered truthfully. “They are talking about two women, a man, and two children. We are only one man, a woman, and one boy who should be sleeping now, bitte.”
Leah glanced at Otto with a strange mix of admiration and confusion. What sort of man might he have been if his life had not become so tied up in all this? And what sort of man was he really now? A good man, she thought. A good man who has chosen a hard way to make some difference in this madness.
***
The immense buildings of Vienna were shrouded in darkness, colorless hulks in the sleeping city. The headlights of Elisa’s car reflected on the shiny cobblestones of the empty Ringstrasse. For a fleeting moment she could remember the peace and beauty of what had been her home. A twinge of sadness passed through her and then was instantly replaced by the urgency of their escape.
The windows of buildings no longer seemed to be eyes closed in dream-filled sleep. Behind every shade and shutter were watchers now—those, who, like Hugel, had traded the mundane hours of a simple life for the rush of excitement flowing from the voice of their new Führer. They had come to believe that they were the superior race he longed for. Fat and thin, young and old fell into line with the endless marching columns. Crooked teeth, balding heads, pockmarked skin . . . still they were the beautiful ones, the purity of the Aryan race! Shopkeepers and thieves, farmers and headwaiters now raised their arms in automatic salute. Heil Hitler! Gone from Vienna was the gentle expression, Grüss Gott—“God Bless!”
Even the buildings now seemed like colossal tombstones to Elisa. She was not leaving the home of her greatest happiness; she was fleeing a cemetery. Here the living dead sought to destroy the lives of those who resisted the disease that had claimed their souls! Elisa shuddered as she turned onto the highway that led from the City of the Dead! Regrets vanished. She would not come back here. It did not matter anymore.
Elisa caught a glimpse of the dim reflection in the side window. Little Charles sat erect, pressed against her side, his eyes consuming the gloomy sights of the passing of Vienna. Did he sense Elisa’s thoughts? His brow furrowed in a frown. She did not ask him what he was thinking. He could not reply with words, but she saw it clearly in his expression. Charles was more than just a child. He was a million children, innocent and bright, herded onto that terrible train Elisa had witnessed in her nightmare. He was the purity and trust that Evil could not tolerate! He was the gentleness and innocence that Evil must pursue and destroy or be put to shame.
This one child embodied those millions of children whom Evil had marked for destruction. An end in an unmarked grave, flesh consumed by fire! Charles, whose imperfection inspired such hatred in the mindless evil of the Reich, was the child on the lap of Christ, the one whose heart and faith were promised the Kingdom of Righteousness. Without uttering one word, this little boy had torn at the conscience of a dying nation and a dying church!
Men had, indeed, turned from the evil doctrines of Hitler because of Charles. Hugel had been right about that. Men had seen the truth in Charles’ clear blue eyes. Could any government have a right before God to end the life of a child? Only if the state also publicly ended the life of God. The very soul of the nation was weighed in the balance of eternity and found wanting. The state had sought to end the life of one child in the name of “mercy.” That one tiny tear in the fabric of morality led to the deaths of thousand of others judged “unworthy.” How many more yet to come would be executed by a government that claimed the right that only a merciful God had held before?
Without a spoken word, Charles was the voice of an unnumbered multitude. Elisa was once again the courier of that message: Stand firm against Evil, or it will consume you as well! Stand against those who steal the minds of your children and replace their prayers with platitudes! Guard the rights of the helpless, or one day you will be helpless and there will be no one there to save you!
Elisa glanced up again and saw the reflection of her own face beside that of the little boy. One image fleeing the darkness. One image pursued by the angry eyes of Evil.
48
Border Crossing
Less than three miles beyond Vienna, as the eastern sky began to lighten, Elisa spotted the first taillights of the army convoys on the road ahead. To either side of the main highway, she could hear the rumble of a thousand other vehicles that had driven around the city and now were converging into one crawling line before her.
She downshifted and braked, matching her pace with the crawl of the army vehicles. She turned on the radio, hoping for some word of a detour for civilian traffic, but the music of military marches was all she could find.
So this was it—the army of the Reich, trucks and transports of sleeping young men who still did not know why they had traveled east all through the night. Elisa bit her lip. She could tell them all about it. A murder would take place in Paris today at noon. And tonight, unless she found some way to get through all this, there would be a second murder in Prague, followed by riots and slaughter in the streets.
Charles’ face grew ashen at the sight of so many soldiers. It was the same sight he and Louis had watched the morning their father had left them in Vienna. It had been a terrifying adventure then. Now he trembled at the thought that these soldiers might be going where Elisa was going. Was there no end to them? Was there no safe place? No place to get away from the bloody banners and trembling earth beneath the wheels of field artillery and tanks?
Elisa spoke for the first time since they had left. “They will turn off. They cannot go all the way to the Czech border!”
But the guns and tanks and lorries did not turn off. Occasionally a vehicle broke down, and the entire column would grind to a halt. Hours passed, and Elisa felt no nearer to the safety of the border than she had at dawn.
Her stomach growled with hunger. They should have been across the border by now, eating breakfast at a small Czech café she knew of. A glance told her Charles was also hungry. He clutched his stomach and peered out the window at a group of Wehrmacht soldiers eatomg bread and chees
e by the side of the road. He knew as well as Elisa that he could not eat, however. Even if there was a place to stop, Charles could not dare to remove the kerchief over his mouth.
“Not much longer,” Elisa said gently, but the words held little meaning. The car lurched forward and stopped again. As the column rounded a long curve, Elisa could see a dozen other civilian cars sandwiched in between the huge vehicles of the Wehrmacht. And one at a time, a soldier on a motorcycle would drive to those civilian cars and demand identity papers.
Elisa’s mouth grew dry. She worked her fingers nervously on the steering wheel and looked down at the Gestapo seal on Otto’s letter. She prayed silently for herself and for Charles, for the president of Czechoslovakia and for the man who was to die at noon. She prayed for the millions beyond the borders of the Reich who would be affected by all that must take place today!