The Stolen Child

by Keith Donohue

  “Not a trace.” He motioned back toward our sleeping quarters, now buried under a ton of earth. The boys must have been sleeping in when the roof collapsed, and I prayed that they had not stirred and went from sleep to death as easily as turning over in their bed. But we could not stop to think of them. The possibility of another collapse urged us on. Chavisory moaned when we removed the last rock off her left ankle, a greenstick fracture, the bones and skin raw and pulpy. Her foot flopped at a sickening angle when we lifted her, and the blood left a viscous slick on our hands. She cried out with every step and lost consciousness as we struggled up to the tunnel, half pulling, half pushing her through. When he saw her leg, bone piercing the skin, Smaolach turned and threw up into the corner. As we rested there before the final push, Speck asked, “Is anyone else alive?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then issued orders for our quick escape. The most difficult part involved the exit of the mine itself, and Chavisory awoke and screamed as she was pinched through. At that moment, I wished we had all been inside, asleep next to one another, all of us buried for good and out of our own private miseries. Exhausted, we placed her down gently on the hillside. None of us knew what to do or say or think. Inside another implosion shuddered, and the mine puffed out one last gasp like a dying dragon.

  Spent and confused by grief, we waited for nightfall. None of us thought that the collapse might have been heard by the people in town or that it might possibly draw the humans to investigate. Luchóg spotted the dot of light first, a small fire burning down by the treeline. With no hesitation or discussion, the four of us picked up Chavisory, our arms linked in a gurney, and headed toward the light. Although worried that the fire might belong to strangers, we decided it would be better, in the end, to find help. We moved cautiously over the shale, causing more pain for poor Chavisory, yet hopeful that the fire would give us a place to stay out of the creeping cold for the night, somewhere we might tend her wounds.

  The wind creaked through the bones of the treetops and shook the upper branches like clacking fingers. The fire had been built by Béka. He offered no apologies or explanations, just grunted like an old bear at our questions before shuffling off to be alone. Onions and Speck crafted a splint for Chavisory’s broken ankle, binding it up with Luchóg’s jacket, and they covered her with fallen leaves and lay next to her all night to share the warmth from their bodies. Smaolach wandered off and returned much later with a gourd filled with water. We sat and stared at the fire, brushing the caked dirt from our hair and clothing, waiting for the sun to rise. In those quiet hours, we mourned the dead. Ragno and Zanzara were as gone as Kivi and Blomma and Igel.

  In place of the prior morning’s brilliant glow, a gentle rain crawled in and settled. Only the occasional whistle from a lonesome bird marked the passing time. Around midday, a fierce yell of pain punctuated the stillness. Chavisory awoke to her ordeal and cursed the rock, the mine, Béka, and us all. We could not silence her anguished cries until Speck took her hand and willed her through steadfastness to be quiet. The rest of us looked away from her, stealing glances at one another’s faces, masks of weariness and sorrow. We were now seven. I had to count twice to believe it.

  • CHAPTER 27 •

  Tess didn’t need to be talked into sneaking across the border, and the very idea of transgression sent an erotic jolt into our honeymoon. The closer we got to Czechoslovakia, the livelier the sex became. On the day we mapped our secret passage to the other side, she kept me in bed until mid-morning. Her desires fed my own curiosity about my hidden heritage. I needed to know where I had come from, who I had been. Every step along the way brought the sensation of returning home. The landscape looked familiar and dreamlike, as if the trees, lakes, and hills lay embedded, but long dormant, in my senses. The architecture of stone and exposed timber was exactly as I had pictured, and at inns and cafés, the people we met bore familial traces in their sturdy bodies, fine chiseled features, clear blue eyes, and sweeping blonde hair. Their faces enticed me deeper into Bohemia. We decided to cross into the forbidden land at the village of Hohenberg, which sat on the German line.

  Since it was first dedicated in 1222, the castle at the center of town had been destroyed and rebuilt several times, most recently after World War II. On a sunny Saturday, Tess and I had the place to ourselves except for a young German family with small children who followed us from building to building. They caught up to us outside, near the uneven white walls that ran along the city’s rear border, a fortress against attack from the forest and the Eger River beyond.

  “Pardon me,” the mother said to Tess in English, “you are American, right? Would you a photograph take? Of my family, on my camera?”

  I blanched at being so easily recognizable as Americans. Tess smiled at me, took off her backpack, and laid it on the ground. The family of six arranged themselves at the base of one of the original parapets. The children looked as if they could have been my brothers and sisters, and as they posed, the notion that I once was part of such a family lingered and then receded into ether. Tess took a few steps backward to squeeze them all into the frame, and the small children cried out, “Vorsicht, der Igel! Der Igel!” The boy, no more than five, ran straight at Tess with a mad expression in his blue eyes. He stopped at her feet, reached between her ankles to a small flower bed, and carefully scooped up something in his small hands.

  “What do you have there?” Tess bent to meet his face.

  He held out his hands and a hedgehog crawled out from his fingers. Everybody laughed at the minor drama of Tess nearly stepping on the prickly thing, but I could barely light a smoke due to the shakes. Igel. I had not heard that name in almost twenty years. All of them had names, not quite forgotten. I reached out to touch Tess to help put them out of mind.

  After the family left, we followed the map to hiking trails behind the castle. Along one path, we came across a miniature cave, and in front, signs of an encampment, what looked to me like an abandoned ring. I led us away quickly, heading east and downhill through the black woods. Our trail spilled out to a two-lane road devoid of traffic. Around the bend, a sign saying EGER STEG pointed to a dirt road to the right, and we came upon mild rapids across a narrow river, no more than a wide but shallow stream. On the opposite bank lay the Czechoslovakian woods, and in the hills behind, Cheb. Not another soul was in sight, and perhaps because of the river or the rocks, no barbed-wire fence protected the border. Tess held my hand and we crossed.

  The rocks above the waterline provided safe footing, but we had to watch our step. When we reached the Czech side, a thrill, sharp as a razor, went through me. We’d made it. Home, or as close to it as possible. At that instant, I was ready to convert—or revert—and lay claim to my identity. Tess and I had disguised ourselves as best we could that morning, affecting a European indifference to our hair and clothing, but I worried that others might see through the ruse. In hindsight, I should not have worried so, for 1968 was the year of the Prague Spring, that open window when Dubček tried to bring “socialism with a human face” to the benighted Czechs and Slovaks. The Russian tanks would not roll in until August.

  Tess loved the danger of our trespass and skulked along the leafy floor like an escaped prisoner. I tried to keep up with her, hold her hand, and assume an air of silent cunning. After a mile or so on our hike, an intermittent sprinkle fell through the green leaves, and then a shower began in earnest. The raindrops hit the canopy above and dripped down with a steady beat, but underneath that rhythm, an irregular sound of footsteps became audible. It was too dark to make out any figures, but I heard them marching through the brush, circling around, following us. I grabbed her arm and pushed on faster.

  “Henry, do you hear that?” Tess’s eyes darted about, and she turned her head from side to side. They kept on coming, and we began to run. She took one last look over her shoulder and screamed. Catching me by the elbow, Tess stopped our progress and wheeled me around t
o face our tormentors. They looked forlorn in the falling rain. Three cows, two brindles and one white, stared back at us, indifferently chewing their cuds.

  Soaked, we fled the wet forest and found the road. We must have been a pitiable sight, for a farmer’s truck stopped, and the driver indicated with his meaty thumb that we could hitch a ride in the back. Tess shouted “Cheb?” to him through the rain, and when he nodded, we got in and rode atop a mountain of potatoes for a half-hour all the way to the quaint Czech village. I kept my eyes on the receding woods, the winding road, sure that we were being followed.

  Like flowers in a spring garden, the houses and stores were painted in pale pastels, the old buildings in white and yellow, taupe and verdigris. While many parts of Cheb seemed ageless, the buildings and landmarks struck no chords in my memory. A black sedan with a red glass siren sat parked at a crazy angle before the town hall. To avoid the police, we walked in the opposite direction, hoping to find someone who could understand our fractured German. We shied away from the pink Hotel Hvezda, spooked by a severe policeman outside who stared at us for a full thirty seconds. Across the square, past the sculpture of the Savage Man, sat a ramshackle hotel near the Ohře River. I had hoped and expected the landmarks to trigger memories of Gustav Ungerland, but nothing was familiar. My vaulted expectations, conjured along the journey, proved too high a hope. It was as if I had never been there before, or as if childhood in Bohemia had never existed.

  Inside a dark and smoky bar, we bribed the manager with American dollars to let us dine on sausages and boiled potatoes, and a dank half-bottle of East German wine. After our meal, we were led up a crooked staircase to a tiny room with no more than a bed and a basin. I locked the door, and Tess and I lay on our backs in our jackets and boots on the threadbare covers, too tense, tired, and excited to move. Darkness slowly stole the light, and the silence was broken only by the sounds of our breathing and wild, racing hearts.

  “What are we doing here?” she finally asked.

  I sat up and began undressing. In my former life, I could have seen her in the dark as clearly as break of day, but now I relied on imagination. “Isn’t it a kick? This town was once part of Germany, and before that of Bohemia?”

  She took off her boots, slipped out of her jacket. I slid under the woolen blankets and coarse sheets as she undressed. Shivering and naked, Tess moved in close, rubbing a cold foot against my leg. “I’m scared. Suppose the secret police come knocking on the door?”

  “Don’t worry, baby,” I told her in my best James Bond. “I’ve got a license to kill.” I rolled over on top of her, and we did our best to live for the danger.

  Waking late the next morning, we hurried over to the grand old Church of St. Nicholas, arriving late for a Mass in Czech and Latin. Nearest the altar sat a few elderly women, rosaries draped in their folded hands, and sprinkled here and there, small families sat in clumps, dazed and wary as sheep. At the entranceway, two men in dark suits may have been watching us. I tried to sing along with the hymns, but I could only fake the words. While I did not understand the service, its rites and rituals mirrored those long-ago Masses with my mother—icons above candles, rich vestments of the priests and pristine altar boys, the rhythm of standing, kneeling, sitting, a consecration heralded by the bells. Although I knew by then it was just a romantic folly, I could picture my former self done up in Sunday clothes beside her on the pew with my reluctant, sighing father and the twins squirming in their skirts. What struck me most of all was the organ music from the loft above, cascading like a river over rocks.

  As the parishioners exited, they stopped to share a few words among themselves and to greet the wizened priest standing in the bright sunshine beyond the door. A blonde girl turned to her nearly identical sister and pointed to us, whispered in his ear, and then they ran hand in hand from the church. Tess and I lingered, taking in the elaborate statues of Mary and St. Nicholas flanking the entrance, and we were the final pair to leave the building. When Tess held out her hand to the priest, she found herself captured in his grasp and drawn closer.

  “Thank you for coming,” he said, then turned to me, a strange look in his eyes, as if he knew my history. “And God bless you, my son.”

  Tess broke into a beatific grin. “Your English is perfect. How did you know we are Americans?”

  He held her hand the whole time. “I was five years in New Orleans at the St. Louis Cathedral back when I was first ordained. Father Karel Hlinka. You’re here for the festival?”

  “What festival?” Tess brightened at the prospect.

  “Pražské Jaro. The Prague Spring International Music Festival.”

  “Oh, no. We knew nothing about that.” She leaned in and said in a low, confidential voice, “We snuck across the border.”

  Hlinka laughed, taking her remark as a joke, and she swiftly changed the subject, asking him about his American experience and the café life of New Orleans. As they chatted and laughed, I went outside, stood in a corner to light a cigarette, and considered the blue smoke curling to the sky. The two blonde sisters had circled back, this time leading a group of other children gathered from the streets. Like a string of birds on a telephone wire, they stood just beyond the gates, a dozen heads peeking over the low wall. I could hear them babbling in Czech, a phrase that sounded like podvržené dítě popping up like the leitmotif of their chattering song. With a glance at my wife, who was holding Father Hlinka in rapt attention, I started to walk over to the children, who scattered like pigeons when I came too close. They flew in again when I showed them my back, and ran off, laughing and screaming, when I turned around. When I stepped outside the gate, I found one girl cowering behind the wall. We spoke in German, and I told her not to be afraid.

  “Why is everyone running away and laughing?”

  “She told us there was a devil in the church.”

  “But I am not a devil . . . just an American.”

  “She said you are from the woods. A fairy.”

  Beyond the town’s streets, the old forest bristled with life. “There are no such things as fairies.”

  The girl stood up and faced me, hands on her hips. “I don’t believe you,” she said, and turned to race off to her companions. I stood there watching her go, my mind twisted in knots, worried that I had made a mistake. But we had come too far for me to be frightened by mere children or the threat of the police. In a way, they were no different from other people. Suspicion was a second skin for me, and I felt perfectly capable of hiding the facts from everyone.

  Tess bounded through the gates and found me on the sidewalk. “How would you like a private tour, baby?”

  Father Hlinka was at her side. “Frau Day tells me that you are a musician, a composer. You must try out the pipe organ here. Best in Cheb.”

  In the loft high above the church, I sat at the keyboard, the empty pews stretching out before me, the gilt altar, the enormous crucifix, and played like a man possessed. To work the foot pedals and get the right tone from the massive organ, I had to rock and throw my weight against the machine, but once I figured out its complexities of stops and bellows and was in the flow of the music, it became a kind of dance. I performed a simple piece from the Berceuse by Louis Vierne, and for the first time in years felt myself again. While I was playing, I became a thing apart, not aware of anyone or anything else but the music, which infused me like hot ice and fell over me like wondrous strange snow. Father Hlinka and Tess sat in the gallery with me, watching my hands move, my head bob, and listened to the music.

  When she tired of the violent sound, Tess kissed my cheek and wandered down the staircase to look over the rest of the church. Alone with the priest, I quickly broached the reason for my visit to Cheb. I told him of my research into family history and how the librarian back in Frankfurt had advised me to check the church records, for there was little hope of getting access to the central government archives.

  “It’s a surprise for her,” I said. “I want to trace Tess’s family tre
e, and the missing link is her grandfather, Gustav Ungerland. If I could just find his birthday or any information about him, I will make up a family history for her.”

  “That sounds like a wonderful thing to do. Come back tomorrow. I’ll dig through the archives, and you can play the music for me.”

  “But you can’t tell my wife.”

  He winked, and we were co-conspirators.

  Over dinner, I told Tess about the musical half of Father Hlinka’s offer, and she was happy for me to have the chance to go back to the organ loft. On Monday afternoon, she sat below in the middle pew, listening for the first hour or so, but then went off on her own. After she left, Father Hlinka whispered, “I have something for you.” He crooked his finger, beckoning me to follow him into a small alcove off the loft. I suspected that he had found some record of the Ungerlands, and my anticipation grew when the priest lifted a wooden chest to the top of a rickety desk. He blew dust off the lid and, grinning like an elf, opened the box.

  Instead of the church documents I had expected, I saw music. Score after score of music for the organ, and not just common hymns, but symphonic masterworks that gave life and presence to the instrument—a raft of Handel, Mahler’s Resurrection, Liszt’s Battle of the Huns, the Fantasie Symphonique by François-Joseph Fétis, and a pair of organ-only solos by Guilmant. There were pieces by Gigout, Langlais, Chaynes, and Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ, Strings, and Timpani. Record albums of Aaron Copland’s First Symphony, Barber’s Toccata Festiva, Rheinberger, Franck, and a baker’s dozen of Bach. I was stunned and inspired. To simply listen to it all—not to mention trying my hand at the grand keyboard—would take months or even years, and we had but a few hours. I wanted to stuff my pockets with loot, fill my head with song.

  “My only vice and passion,” Hlinka said to me. “Enjoy. We are not so different, you and I. Strange creatures with rare loves. Only you, my friend, you can play, and I can but listen.”