by Bodie Thoene
How many prayers had risen from this holy place since the first Christians had laid the cornerstone? I felt surrounded by a great cloud of heavenly witnesses whenever I entered the Abbey. The earth, foundations, the building blocks, the high vaults of the sanctuary, the tombs of the saints, must surely be saturated with God’s presence. The air seemed to echo with generations of hymns and the Word of God spoken daily for many centuries. Westminster Abbey seemed to me like an earthly gate opening into heaven.
I considered that a German bomb might fall upon this holy ground today. I might never leave this place alive. And if I were killed in that hour? Surely many believers who had gone before would be waiting beyond this portal to welcome me.
Murphy and I joined the steady stream of choirboys, still dressed in their red and white choral robes, as they tramped down the worn stone steps into the dark bowels of the crypt. As I was surrounded by the laughter and excited chatter, it was though we had been transported into another century.
“I feel so safe here,” I remarked to Murphy.
The cherubic faces of the boys in the choir stalls had become familiar to me. I knew their voices well and had asked the docent for a roster so I might learn their names. The Westminster choir school provided the finest education for boys from all ranks of British society. Selected for their singing talent and academic potential, they received full tuition, room, and board in return for agreeing to a rigorous schedule of rehearsal and performance. Westminster Abbey Choir School existed solely to educate and care for the thirty or so boys who sang as choristers in the Abbey choir. The purpose-built school, set in the heart of the Abbey precincts, offered a superior education tailored precisely to the needs of choristers. Like many schools in the great cathedrals of Europe, academic lessons, musical tuition, sports, activities, and games were carefully arranged around the boys’ various singing commitments.
In Berlin, Vienna, and Prague I knew of several parochial choir schools that had been dissolved and the boys forced to become part of the Hitler Youth. Among the thirty choristers of Westminster Abbey I recognized two brothers with Czech surnames: Peter and Tomas Svitek. Both had the strong features of Ashkenazi Jews. A musician friend who knew the choirmaster confirmed what I had guessed. Eleven-year-old Peter seldom smiled. I had never heard him speak; he had never uttered so much as one word that I had observed. When Peter sang so clear and rich, his eyes seemed haunted with memories too grim for one so young.
In contrast, Peter’s younger brother, nine-year-old Tomas, shone like a bright penny. His countenance was always joyful as he tilted his chin slightly upward and filled the dusty vaults of the Abbey with lilting song. Tomas stood next to Connor Turner in the stalls. I often saw the two nudge one another in unguarded moments before or after the services. They put their heads together and shared the comedic plotting of best friends who longed to slip a toad into the pocket of some unsuspecting girl.
Connor soloed in a clear, high soprano. He had tousled blond hair, fair skin with a sprinkling of freckles across his nose, and bright blue eyes that danced when he saw me. His ears protruded, and I once heard an older boy call him “Teapot.” Connor took the teasing with good humor. He and Tomas had one another’s backs.
John and James Warne were brothers—English from head to toe. John, with straight brown hair and serious brown eyes, was about thirteen and sang contralto. He had the swagger of an athlete about him, as if wearing his red and white choir robe was a thing only to be tolerated. I saw him frown with disgust, clench his fists, and lift his chin defiantly at his own reflection in a mirror.
His younger brother, James, age ten, looked very much like John, except that he wore wire-rimmed glasses that continually slid down the bridge of his aquiline nose as he read the music.
In my mind I called John, James, Peter, and Tomas “The Four Apostles.”
As the Abbey choristers processed past my seat for each day’s Evensong, they had come to recognize me as a regular attendee. Perhaps they could sense I was a musician as well. After services I had often lingered to speak with the organist about a piece of music or a composer. I had twice met the choir director through friends in the BBC Orchestra.
Over time, though I had never spoken to the boys, our eyes met and furtive smiles were exchanged when, at the end of each service, I gave them a surreptitious thumbs-up of approval and appreciation.
Today Connor and Tomas whispered behind their hands as I walked down the steep stairs.
I overheard Connor say in his best imitation of American cinema dialogue, “What a dish!”
Tomas added with a low whistle and a slight Czech accent, “I’ll say! She’s some tomato, you bet.”
I had never cherished a compliment so highly as the wolf whistle from those boys.
And so it was, on the day of the air raid, I found myself in the midst of these darling schoolboys whom I had admired at a distance. I was pleased and comfortable as their excited chatter filled the dark, low confines of the crypt.
I introduced myself as a fellow musician and told them how much I had enjoyed their music. Connor replied that some of the chaps had noticed me in the choir stalls, and some even had a crush on me. All of them liked it when I came to Evensong to hear them sing.
In the moment of Connor’s cheerful candor, a lasting friendship was welded.
On the landing above us, the air raid warden scanned the long, empty corridor, then called, “Everybody in?” He hesitated, waiting for an answer. The distant crump of the first bombs replied. We were silent. Breathless. I imagined someone outside, hurrying to get to safety as the barrage began.
“All right, then. Last call!” A moment more and then, “We’re closing the door now.” The massive timber door swung shut.
The warden remained on the top step in case some frantic latecomer arrived.
The boom, boom, boom of ordnance penetrated the thick stone walls. All eyes turned upward as the dust of centuries was shaken loose.
I held Murphy’s hand.
“That was close,” he said hoarsely.
Connor piped, “Ah, it’s ours. Nothin’ to worry about. It’s the ack-ack guns in St. James.”
John, drawing himself up and jutting out his chin in a manly posture, declared, “It’s our boys all right. Hope the war isn’t over before I get a chance to have a go at a Jerry.”
James, who blinked rapidly with every concussion, reprimanded his older brother, “You know Mum don’t like you saying such a thing, John. Don’t wish it lasts a day longer than this.”
Peter was ashen, as gray as the stone upon which he leaned. He could not hide his stark fear.
I hung back in the shadows and prayed as the explosions came nearer.
Murphy spoke quietly in my ear, “That boy’s lived through something…look at him.”
Tomas overheard Murphy’s remark. “My brother can’t talk well. Not since we were strafed on the road in France. Our mother was killed. Our father is in America. We will go there. We have been practicing American songs. Learning to sing like Americans.”
An enormous concussion shook the foundations. Instinctively, we covered our heads. Murphy held me tightly.
Peter cried out.
Tomas consoled Peter in the Czech tongue. I understood a bit. “Don’t worry, brother. The RAF will knock them out of the sky. You’ll see. It’s ours, not theirs. Peter? Peter! I think we have just felt a Dornier crash. We will come up and see we have knocked a Dornier right out of the sky. Peter? You understand, Peter?”
But Peter did not answer. He crouched. His wide, terrified eyes were fixed on the ceiling as he waited for the blocks to come crashing down on us.
Tomas said to Connor, “He’s so scared. He dreams about the bombs. About our mother and our sister in the ditch. He relives what happened in France. He thinks now is then…every time.”
Connor covered his teapot ears with his hands as the next stick of bombs made the floor tremble beneath our feet. Then, as if by some miracle, Connor raised his
face, smiled slightly, and pulled out a tin penny whistle from beneath his robe. He raised it to his lips and began to play an introduction as sweet as the trill of a nightingale.
In awe, Murphy said to me, “He’s playing ‘Shenandoah’!”
Tomas began to sing along in a perfect bell-like soprano, “Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you…”
John and a dozen others joined in: “A-way, you rolling river…”
Peter raised his eyes and stood erect. I saw his lips move. “America!” Then he opened his mouth and began to sing the tune so full of longing for the New World. The melody overcame the roar of explosions that ripped through the earth so close to us.
“Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you…
Away, I’m bound away,
’Cross the wide Missouri.”4
For more than an hour the battle raged far above us, but the boys of the Abbey sang song after song while Connor accompanied them on the tin whistle. The terrible hours passed without terror. Music sustained us.
It was deep night when, at last, the all-clear sounded. We bade one another farewell and promised to meet again at Evensong tomorrow. We emerged from the crypt to a sight both terrible and beautiful. The night was as bright as day. Smoke and ash from the great city stung our eyes and filled our nostrils.
All of London was ablaze.
You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations…. Awake! Why are You sleeping, O Lord? Rouse Yourself! Do not reject us forever!
PSALM 44:11, 23 ESV
VIENNA, AUSTRIA
DECEMBER 1937
I wonder sometimes if God is asleep. Why has He been silent? Why do my prayers go unanswered? It is the Christmas season again, and “Silent Night” has taken on a new meaning for me. A year since Papa disappeared. Still no word of his fate. Nor any further word from John Murphy or Eben Golah about Papa.
The year 1937 is a terrible one for the world. The Spanish Civil War still rages. Franco’s nationalists are backed by Nazi warplanes. Some people say what is happening in Spain is the rehearsal for what will come. Germany is practicing in Spain, perfecting the art of death.
I hear John Murphy is reporting from Spain.
Mama and my brothers remain in Prague. She has taken a house. Since Prague was Papa’s last destination, perhaps she feels closer to him there. She may move to London in the spring.
The orchestra is readying another round of holiday concerts, but all of us have an edge of uneasiness. So many of us with German-Jewish heritage. In Germany it grows worse each day. I remember what happened in Berlin. Now signs like I saw there are appearing in Vienna: Juden Verboten.
After the German airship Hindenberg crashes, we go to the cinema and see a newsreel about it. Leah is recognized as Jewish by the doorman at the cinema and refused entry! I almost slap him, and I do tell him to go back to Germany and stay there.
Leah and her Shimon save their money and wait for visas to British Palestine.
I tell them not to worry—that Austria is not Germany. Everything will still turn out all right. I don’t want them to go.
Shimon looks sad. He tells me Hitler is sending more and more Nazis into Austria, and he points to the JEWS FORBIDDEN sign across the street as proof. He says, with or without visas, they are going to Eretz-Israel. I think he means it.
I show Leah a copy of the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, the one with a picture of Hitler standing next to his friend, the Muslim Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. “Vows to banish Jews from Holy City forever,” the caption reads.
See? I demand. Why do you think it’s safer there?
Because it’s our homeland, Leah says.
I house Jewish children passing through Vienna on their way to France and then to Palestine. I see the forged papers they carry. For Leah and Shimon and me to be caught helping is to risk prison.
If not for John Murphy’s help on the train, I would be in prison already. Still, he is an American. It was no risk for him at all.
What will 1938 bring?
3 Psalm 91:7 ESV
4 “Oh Shenandoah” or simply “Shenandoah,” a traditional American folk song of uncertain origin, dating at least to the early nineteenth century
LONDON BLITZ
SUMMER 1940
Our masquerade as three Hollywood stars on Oxford Street became an act suddenly in demand. As performers we were called on to “do our bit” for the morale of our adopted country, so Mariah, Raquel, and I performed our routine on the BBC. One day after, we were recruited to join an organization called Entertainments National Service Association, or ENSA for short. Our troupe was made up of professionals, as well as well-meaning amateurs, and was such a mixed bag that among the public the ENSA show was also known as “Every Night Something Awful”
We patriotically entertained as Hedy, Carmen, and Maureen impersonators for hospitals, home-front factories, and for the armed forces. We were first introduced to our fellow ENSA artistes in a dusty little theatre on Drury Lane. The manager was a wiry fellow named Nobby, who wore a brown-and-yellow plaid suit. He never removed his hat for anyone, and this was the only signal he was Jewish. It was rumored Nobby had once managed strippers in a Bronx burlesque theatre. We lined up on the stage and he paced before us, explaining that he alone had been charged with putting together entertainment troupes to keep the morale of England high. His was the grave and daunting responsibility to send us forth between broadcasts to lift the spirits of an entire nation. How was he to accomplish this? It would take a miracle, because many of England’s finest actors and performers had left for the States before the war and would not be returning.
“You’d think Hollywood could have picked an American actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. Eh? You’d think they could, but no. The Hollywood big shots gotta raid England’s treasures. Vivien Leigh’s gotta learn to talk like a Southern belle! London burns, and the whole rage in the London cinema is watching Scarlett O’Hara flee as Atlanta burns. Okay, so we’ve got to make it good, ladies and gentlemen. You’re what’s left of British talent after the American raid on the West End.”
Nobby sighed, closing his eyes dramatically. When he opened them again, he was staring at Raquel. He appraised her in a this-is-strictly-business way. “So, girlie, great gams. Aside from impersonatin’ Carmen Miranda, and singin’ South American torch songs on the BBC, what’s your story? You’re the one from Spain? Right?”
From the end of the row, the famed classical concert guitarist Pablo Garcia leaned forward and gaped furiously at Nobby in disbelief at what he was hearing. “Sir, please! You are addressing the premiere flamenco dancer of Spain—Raquel Esperanza!”
Nobby was unimpressed. “Is that supposed to mean somethin’ to the ordinary chap in a munitions factory, I ask you? I gotta put a show together here!” Hands on his hips, he asked, “So. How’d you get here, Miss Esperanza? Lemme hear your story, because the common people will want to know.”
Raquel smiled at Nobby with her Mona Lisa smile. He was the only one in the room who did not know who she was.
Her reply was dignified and without emotion. “I was a professional flamenco dancer before the war in Spain. The German Fascists practiced for bombing London by first bombing Madrid. I lost my husband and my child. God sent to me three young girls—two Jewish sisters and a gypsy girl like me—orphaned on the same day my family was killed. We fled from the Fascists to Paris. There I danced in the opera Carmen. The Nazis conquered France. A million refugees on the roads. We managed to escape on a fishing vessel out of Calais. I have friends here in the opera in London. They remembered when I danced the Segurilla the night my family died. They helped me and my girls. I also have friends in American opera. I hope to go to New York and dance again at the Metropolitan Opera House. Carmen.”
Nobby nodded and rubbed his chin. “Lemme see what you’ve got.” He inclined his head toward the guitarist. “Can you give her a hand?”
Pablo unsheathed his guitar like a sword and began
to play the ancient cante jondo, awakening the suffering soul of Raquel. As he played and sang, she became again the woman among the dead and dying of her homeland.
“I climbed the wall;
The wind cried to me:
‘Why these sighs,
When there is no remedy?’
I wept, the breeze,
To see wounds so deep,
Deep, deep in my heart.”
Raquel danced the dance of mourning. Our cast line, touched by the fierce breeze of her dance, stepped back and gave her room. Dust rose up from the dormant boards.
“I’ve no fear of rowing,
If I want to I will.
I fear only the breeze
From your bay blowing still.”5
The tapping of her feet on stage transformed those mediocre planks into the bloody cobblestones of Madrid where her husband and child lay dead.
When at last the guitar fell silent, we were silent too. Then all of us who understood the meaning of Raquel’s dance began to cheer and applaud.
Nobby stood with his head bowed and his arms crossed. At last he raised his eyes and declared, “Well, that was bloody depressing. None of that. None of that in this troupe, girlie. You’ll stick to the Carmen Miranda material or we can’t use you to tour, see? We’re meant to lift up the spirits…you get it?”
Pablo looked as if he might strangle Nobby. Raquel simply smiled sadly, bowed slightly, and resumed her place in the lineup.
Each of us was made to audition. Top billing went to a young girl with a big voice. Miss Julie Andrews sang the most popular tunes of the day, such as “You Are My Sunshine.”
We put together a show that opened with a medley of American tunes. Nobby bashed away at the honky-tonk piano. A trumpeter belted out old familiar vaudeville tunes. Our performances made a great noise in factory lunchrooms as hundreds of knives and forks clattered. Nobby’s experience as the manager of a burlesque house paid off as our performances both entertained and lifted morale. I continued to be introduced onstage as a blond Hedy Lamarr. I waited stage right with my violin as Nobby and Pablo performed a comedy routine:
