Munich Signature

by Bodie Thoene

  ***

  The U.S. Coast Guard cutter accompanied the Darien far beyond Sandy Hook Lighthouse, finally turning back twelve miles out to sea. They did not want the body of a dead Jewish child accidentally washing up on a beach somewhere. The burial of Ada-Marie would have to take place far from shore to prevent such a possibility.

  ***

  Maria and Klaus sat in the cluttered office adjoining the captain’s cabin where the tiny jewel-box coffin of Ada-Marie had been placed. Maria’s eyes were dry now, dull with grief. Her child was to be immersed in the terrible ocean after all, cast loose among the sharks and fish and cold swirling currents of the Atlantic. What would they do with the tiny coffin now?

  Captain Burton’s voice was low and yet gruff, as if he resisted the grief that threatened to founder his ship. “Go on now, Tucker. Cut a square of canvas for a shroud. There is nothing else to do . . . nothing else.”

  Klaus held Maria’s fingers limply in his own. His eyebrows were slightly raised, causing his brow to furrow as he stared through the door at the casket. The last comfort had been demolished. There had been one glimmer of relief in the thought that Bubbe Rosenfelt might have been allowed to give their little one a proper burial. To imagine coming to stand beside a small headstone on a grassy knoll, to whisper sweet words of memory at such a place—somehow that thought had eased the broken heart of Ada-Marie’s father. But now . . . Cut a square of canvas for a shroud! Could no one see the sweetness that had been little Ada-Marie? Was the world so heartless that bright eyes and shining braids and laughter and little hands reaching up could now simply be stuffed into a square of canvas and dropped into the sea?

  Klaus squeezed Maria’s hand and then stood to walk into the room where Ada-Marie lay.

  Captain Burton would not—could not—look into the face of the grieving father. He could not bear the scene.

  Klaus stood over the open coffin. Lovingly he traced the curve of his child’s smile with his eyes. Had he ever taken time to count the freckles on her pale skin before? Had he noticed her soft lashes when she slept? The small button nose that seemed always to be pointing up as she craned her neck to look into his face?

  Her hair still shone. The ends of her honey-brown braids curled on the pillow where she lay. Klaus touched her forehead. Cold. He let his tears fall onto her pudgy little hands. All the ocean could not contain more grief than those tears.

  “How can Papa say good-bye, Ada-Marie?” he whispered, smoothing back her bangs. “How many sleeps until I see you again?”

  His breath was shallow as he tried to keep himself from breaking. His hands trembled. He turned to Captain Burton, who stared out through a porthole at the flat gray sea. “Do you have scissors?” Klaus managed to ask. “A lock of hair . . . for her mother to . . .” His voice failed him.

  Captain Burton fetched scissors from a drawer and then turned quickly to the porthole again.Klaus carefully snipped the curl on the child’s right braid. He let himself smile for a moment at the memory of Ada-Marie trimming her own hair a year before. It had only just grown out.

  The door to the cabin opened suddenly. Tucker stood in the doorway. He seemed suddenly awkward at the sight of Klaus beside the little girl’s body. In his hand was a frayed square of canvas from a tarp. Tucker tried to conceal the material. It was stained with oil.

  Klaus let his eyes linger on the canvas. “She deserved so much more,” he said at last. Then he closed his fingers around the lock of hair.

  Captain Burton cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I . . . am ashamed today to be an American.”

  For a long time no one spoke. Behind them the sound of Maria’s heavy sighs drifted through the door. At last Klaus nodded. “I will take Maria below now. Thank you for . . . trying.” There was nothing else to thank the captain for. He had tried. They all had done their best.

  The face of the rabbi of Nuremberg appeared behind Tucker in that instant. He wore his white silk prayer shawl and carried his prayer book in his gnarled hand. The ancient eyes were red with grief. He had seen much in his lifetime. This act was a new kind of heartlessness. He bowed slightly to Tucker and inched past him into the room. “They say we must bury the child at sea.” He addressed Captain Burton but put a hand gently on the arm of Klaus.

  Burton nodded once. “There is no choice.”

  The rabbi looked into the sweet face of the child. “Sleeping,” he murmured. Then he examined the dirty square of canvas that would be her shroud. Carefully he removed his prayer shawl, its white silk and silver thread gleaming in the dim light. He placed it gently over the body of Ada-Marie, tucked it around her chin like a blanket, and bent low to whisper something.

  His eyes shining, he straightened and turned to face Klaus. “She loved my tallith. Silver and silk. And so this shall be her shroud.”

  Klaus closed his eyes in gratitude at such a gesture.

  Then the rabbi of Nuremberg reached out his hand to take the canvas from Tucker. “And this—” the old man draped the canvas over his head where silk and silver had been— “This shall be my prayer shawl.” He lowered his eyes, and his lips moved silently behind his beard. He shuffled toward the door of the office. “Maria.” His voice was gentle. “Look at me, Maria.”

  She raised her eyes and cried, “Oh, Rabbi! She is so little. To leave her in this dark sea . . .”

  The old man nodded. “When our fathers crossed the Red Sea from bondage to freedom they took with them the coffin of Joseph as he had instructed them.” He sighed and glanced toward the child. “They wandered forty years without destination until all that generation was gone. And when they crossed the Jordan at last, the bones of Joseph were also carried to the shores of the Promised Land.” Now he gazed imploringly into the face of Captain Burton. The question was clear even before words formed on his lips. “How can we leave Ada-Marie behind? If all of us should wander homeless, still this child should have a plot of ground; a very small piece of soil will do.”

  The stern facade of the captain cracked at last. His eyes were bright with emotion. He gave the order quietly to Tucker. “Make the casket airtight. A lead seal. The child will have a proper burial.”

  The rabbi smiled as Maria wept tears of relief. “Like Joseph, Ada-Marie shall go with us and before us, wherever our Promised Land may be.”

  ***

  From the first hour after the Darien was escorted from New York, the shadow of U.S. Coast Guard cutter 177 was never far away. Sometimes it was a small gray shape on the horizon between the ship and the vast land of America. Other times it was near enough to the Darien that the shapes of men could easily be made out. But alway, the cutter stood guard on American soil. Day and night it crept slowly behind the rusty hulk to make certain that none of the refugees jumped into the water or attempted to swim to shore.

  30

  Wait Until Morning

  Dressed in new pajamas, Charles sat cross-legged on the hospital bed as Murphy tried very hard to explain it all to him. English wasn’t working, so Murphy tried German:

  “Doc says the surgery won’t be tough at all. Maybe you’ll feel like you had your tonsils out. I had my tonsils out, and it wasn’t so bad. Got all the ice cream I wanted, and after a week I was home.”

  To this last statement, Charles looked curiously at Murphy. Home? Where would Charles go after a week in the hospital? He had no home to go to, and now that Murphy was returning to Europe, who would come to visit him?

  Murphy cleared his throat uncomfortably. The cello case stood open in the corner of the small, sterile room—a reminder of Louis, of Leah Feldstein, of Vienna. Murphy scratched his head and ran a hand over his face. I’m not handling this very well, he thought. He felt guilty about it all, but what choice was there now? How could he explain? “Mrs. Rosenfelt . . . Bubbe Rosenfelt . . . can’t be here, Charles, because she’s . . . in mourning. You know what mourning is?”

  Charles nodded his understanding. Murphy blinked at his own stupidity. Of course Charles Kronenberger knew
about mourning. He had spent his entire life in mourning.

  “Well, I wish I could stay. You know I just wish I could put this off long enough—but I know you’re going to be okay. Take it like a man, and pretty soon you’ll be saying hot dog! And Let’s go to the movies, and all sorts of great stuff.” The combination of German and American slang sounded funny, but Murphy didn’t smile.

  “Uh-huh,” Charles said quietly. He wanted to ask when Murphy would come back. Or when Murphy would send for him. And if Murphy would find his brother Louis and tell Leah that her cello was in New York with Charles.

  “Okay.” Murphy patted the shoulder of the frail little boy. “And I’ll be praying for you, Charles.” The promise fell flat. Murphy could see the brave front was only a front. Both of them felt it. “Mr. Trump and the rest of the guys from the newsroom promised to come visit. I don’t know how long Bubbe Rosenfelt will be out of commission. Poor old lady; she took it pretty hard. But I want you to understand that all this . . . with the ships . . . is the reason I have to leave, Charles. You understand? They’re having this big meeting in Evian to see if maybe some country might not have a place for them.”

  “Uh-huh!” Charles said enthusiastically. It was important. Charles knew Murphy would not leave him to face the surgery all alone unless he had to go. The child sighed. It was important, and yet did Murphy know that Charles was afraid? Could he see it? Could Murphy see that the cello in the corner was not enough to keep him company?

  Ah, well, Charles was also aware that the ache in his heart could not change things. And so it had to be.

  Good-bye, Murphy. I hope you come back, Charles’ heart said. I hope you find Louis and come back for me. Will you forget about me, Murphy? Please come back.

  “Okay then,” Murphy said with a buck-up smile, “we’re gonna make it fine.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a ship to catch. I’ll call as soon as I reach France. Mr. Trump will wire me on the ship. It’s all going to go fine, and next time I see you I want you to say, ‘Hi ya, Murph,’ okay?”

  A quick hug. No tears. Another quick hug, and then Murphy was gone.

  ***

  Everything was quiet now except for the hollow echoes of city sounds. Charles crept from his bed and tiptoed to the window of his hospital room. He leaned against the cool glass of the pane and gazed in wonder at the vast display of New York City lights that surrounded the hospital compound.

  Suddenly the big brick building where he stayed seemed very small. Charles felt very small and insignificant as well. The ache of loneliness and fear filled him as never before. If he closed his eyes he could almost remember what Mommy had looked like—the sound of her voice, the touch of her hand on his head when she held him. She had been soft and had smelled like flowers—always like flowers. His head had just fit beneath her chin and if he sat very still he could hear her heart beating.

  Charles put his hand to his mouth. By tomorrow at this time the operation would be finished and he would be on his way to looking like other boys. Like his brother Louis. He would learn to talk and laugh and even sing the songs Mommy had sung to them so long ago. Could he make those words come as clearly to his mouth as they were in his heart? And if Louis never came back, whom would he sing with?

  Tonight the city was a study in electric geometry. Neat lines of yellow light. Bright boxed grids of unpeopled windows. Headlights reflected in puddles on the street. The bright orange line of the elevated train as it inched like a caterpillar along a narrow, leafless stem. It was as if mankind had envied the bright chaos of the stars and had sought to arrange a more orderly image below.

  From beneath the blackened tin roof of the massive New York train sheds, engines whined and squeaked. The clank of metal against metal sounded like the little brass bells Mommy had hung outside their bedroom window in Hamburg. Summer breezes from the Aussen-Alster had made them ring gently. Often she had sung Charles and Louis to sleep accompanied by the formless melody of those bells.

  When winter had come the bells had banged against the glass of the window. No longer pretty, they had blended with the sound of fists against the door. The men had broken down the door and taken Father away. Taken him to the prisoner trains—the trains of Germany that had cried and moaned and carried Father where he did not want to go. Then Mommy had been taken . . . where? To heaven, they told him.

  And then the Nazi doctors had strapped Charles onto the cold shiny table and hurt him. He would never forget their words:

  “They should have tossed this one into the Aussen-Alster and let him drown. Well, this will make sure he does not spawn a tribe of monsters like himself.”

  “Who would ever love such a beast anyway?”

  “Better to make certain he is armed with blanks just in case he puts a bag over his head and marries a blind girl!”

  Their laughter had drowned out his screams. He had been sore for a few days and then he had forgotten the physical pain, although the memory of their laughter rang in his nightmares.

  Even when summer had come gently on the breezes of the Aussen-Alster to ring the bells Mommy had hung outside the window, Charles could only hear that terrible laughter in his dreams. And the formless melody mocked him as the white-coated doctors of the Reich had mocked him.

  As Charles leaned against the window and stared out on the lights of this unfamiliar city, tears formed and fell silently onto the windowsill. Murphy had left. He was alone. And tomorrow the doctors would again strap him onto a cold steel table and reach toward him with their knives. There was nothing he could do; he could not even tell anyone how terrified he was. He could only cry and wait for morning.

  ***

  Silence reigned in the Brooklyn home of the Rosenfelt family. The old clock at the foot of the stairs ticked off the seconds and minutes and hours of mourning that cloaked the house in grief for little Ada-Marie.

  During the seven days of mourning, old friends and neighbors had brought meals for Bubbe Rosenfelt and had sat with her to grieve in silence for the little girl they had never known. It seemed that all of Brooklyn observed shiva that week; every Jew grieved for the dead child and for the ship which had been turned back out to sea. Old men shook their heads sadly as if the great-grandchild of Bubbe Rosenfelt had been their own, as if their own sons and daughters were packed into the holds of the decrepit freighter.

  In every synagogue across the country kaddish was recited:

  “Magnified and sanctified be His great name in the world which He hath created according to His will.”

  And with the words of that ancient prayer the question echoed in a thousand hearts: Did God create such a cruel world? Did He close the gates to these few refugees? Why has this evil come upon them?

  For every one of those onboard the Darien, a thousand homes now begged to give them shelter—Jewish homes and Christian as well.

  “May He establish His kingdom during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the House of Israel, even speedily and at a near time; and ye say, Amen!”

  In the pulpits of churches across the nation, pastors and priests stood to recount with shame the denial of the U.S. government against the people of the Darien. Families from farms and cities stood and asked if they might take even one Jewish child into their homes until the persecution had passed over the Jews of the Reich.

  “May there be abundant peace from Heaven and life for us and for all Israel; and ye say, Amen!”

  As the silence of shiva continued in the little home in Brooklyn, the public outcry swelled at the sight of the photograph of the tiny coffin on the deck of the ship. That image of grieving father and mother touched a chord in the hearts of parents that transcended all considerations of race and religion.

  Letters to congressmen filled mail pouches with seething indignation. Christian ministers stood beside rabbis to question the inhumanity of the government’s decision.

  Politicians raised their eyebrows in surprise at the public outcry, then quietly raised their finge
rs to test the shift in political winds. Was this response the opinion of the majority of Americans, or only a very vocal minority of religious fanatics? Would the interest in the refugees onboard that ship die out as the vision of the photograph faded from memory? Often that was the case in such matters. One big hullabaloo, and then it was over. Washington would wait a bit and take a reading later on. After all, it was election year.

  After the seven days of shiva, Bubbe Rosenfelt stood slowly and removed the black cloth that covered the mirrors in her room. She opened her mouth with slight surprise at the image of the old woman who gazed back at her. She did not remember being so very old. Had she aged so very much in seven days?

  “It is possible,” she muttered to herself. “God created the whole world in six days. A lot can happen in a week.”

  With a shake of her head she washed her face and combed her hair and put on comfortable shoes. It was time to return to the real world, to see if the world had also grown older and wiser in one week. She had not read the newspaper or listened to the news on the radio in all that time. She had asked no questions until now. Answers were one phone call away.

  ***

  A voice in the familiar accent of Hamburg reached out to Charles in the darkness. “It is late, Charles. Tomorrow you have an important day, nu? Why are you still up?”