Vienna Prelude

by Bodie Thoene

  He was suddenly conscious of the cow manure on his boots and the work clothes he wore. He brushed a lock of his curly brown hair back beneath his cap and bowed politely. “Allow me to introduce myself. Franz Wattenbarger.” He did not offer to shake hands. He had not washed since his chores in the barn. “My family works to make your stay at the chalet most comfortable.” He stepped back as the boys appraised his disheveled appearance. “My work was only just finished when my mother sent me to fetch you.”

  As though sensing his discomfort, Anna Linder smiled slightly. “I am Frau Anna Linder. And these are my sons Wilhelm”—she touched the oldest boy on the arm—“and Dieter.”

  The two teenagers nodded curtly, and Franz noticed the way their eyes glanced nervously around the station. They seemed almost fearful, certainly too serious for boys who had just come to the Tyrol for a vacation.

  Wilhelm held the skis and Dieter managed the ski poles. Forgetting his soiled hands, Franz clapped Wilhelm on the back. “Ready for a good time, I see?” His deep brown eyes gazed steadily until he caught Wilhelm’s glance and held it. Only then did the serious young man dare to smile. “You fellows have been too long in school, I think.” He hefted the luggage and led the way to the sleigh.

  “School?” began Dieter. “Oh no, we—” A hard nudge from his brother silenced him.

  Franz pretended not to notice. He did, however, detect that while Mrs. Linder’s accent was unmistakably Viennese, both boys had the bold, hard accent of Berliners. “The weather in Vienna has been rainy, I hear,” he said to Wilhelm, who looked uneasy.

  “It always rains this time of year in Vienna,” Anna Linder replied confidently as she stepped between Franz and the boys. “But not so bad as in Salzburg.” Her words were cheerful, but her eyes seemed to look past Franz as though she carried some dark secret.

  He nodded and loaded the baggage and tied up the skis. Tyrol was full of people with haunted, frightened expressions these days. Their letter may have come from Vienna, but the cut of their clothes, the pallor of their skin, the weariness of their eyes all spoke of Germany. Franz decided he would not pry. He would not make them have to lie. It was quite obvious that they were people of affluence. If they had not wanted to remain secluded, they would have chosen to stay somewhere other than the chalet of a poor Austrian farm family. He glanced at Frau Linder’s long, delicate fingers—strong hands, but unaccustomed to physical labor. He could not help but think about the calloused hands of his own mother—how she scrambled around the house, shouting orders and changing bedding while everyone tried to stay out of her path.

  Franz caught Wilhelm’s eye again. “You like to ski?”

  The young man nodded but did not smile again. Life was serious. Too serious for such conversation.

  Franz decided that if there was to be conversation on the trip up the mountain, he would be the only one talking. “I have two younger brothers. About your age, I would guess. They will show you where the best slopes are for skiing.” He tried to maintain the feeling of holiday, although their behavior told another story. “There is the best skiing in the world here.”

  “Last season we went to Bavaria—,” began Dieter, but he was again nudged to silence.

  Bavaria. In Germany. Franz saw Wilhelm’s eyes glance around again to see who might be listening. “Bavaria!” exclaimed Franz, as though he did not notice. “Well, you are from Vienna. Austrians. You know there is no skiing in Germany like there is in the Tyrol.”

  “Actually we are from Prague,” corrected Frau Linder. “Our passports are Czechoslovakian.”

  Franz had no doubt that the passports were indeed Czechoslovakian, but he also knew the difference in accent. “Your letter came from Vienna.”

  “Yes.” Frau Linder was quick to reply as they climbed into the sleigh. “Our daughter is a musician there. She made the arrangements for us.”

  “And she is coming?”

  “Yes. In a few days. With her father. He has some . . . business, and they are coming in a few days.”

  As Franz clucked the horse into motion, he sensed that even the simplest of questions seemed almost too much for his passengers to handle. He lapsed into silence as they glided into the night. The guests talked quietly in guarded tones to one another, commenting on the moonlight on the snow, the lights of the village—matters that usually went totally unnoticed by most boys their ages. Yes, the Tyrol was full of cautious conversation these days—German accents explaining Czech passports or visas to France. It did not take a genius detective or a Gestapo agent to figure out that the Linders, if that was their real name, had not come for a holiday. They had rented the chalet as a way station until they found someplace to go. Franz could only guess that this woman’s husband and daughter must still be in Germany. And so she had brought her visions of the Gestapo and arrest along with her.

  “My mother is quite a good cook,” Franz remarked, startled at his ability to be mundane. “Are you hungry?”

  ***

  John Murphy sipped his Coke and stared down at the traffic inching along Berlin’s Unter den Linden. From his corner room on the third floor of the Adlon Hotel, he had a perfect view of the somber British Embassy on Wilhelmstrasse and the expansive German Interior Ministry on the other corner. A block away he could just make out the glaring spotlights that illuminated the bronze horses atop Brandenburg Gate.

  Murphy was the envy of every foreign correspondent in Berlin. Americans always got the best rooms, it seemed. Most assumed it was Hitler’s attempt to placate the Yankee journalists who were the quickest to report unpleasant incidents among the German population in the young Nazi regime. Whatever the reason, Murphy was treated well by Goebbels, the propaganda minister in Hitler’s cabinet. Often Murphy was given first crack at some new turn in the maze of Nazi policies. Last month, for instance, Goebbels had arranged for a private interview with Herr Ribbentrop after the Germans had signed a pact with the Japanese to protect the Western world against the Russian Communists.

  Murphy grinned now at the memory. Ribbentrop had paced back and forth as he explained the alliance against Bolshevism. The “master race” of Aryans was now allied with the Japanese “master race,” and together they would save Western civilization. That was the way Hitler wanted the story reported in the American press.

  Murphy had asked incredulously, “The Japanese are going to protect the Western world?”

  Ribbentrop had nodded seriously. “Exactly.”

  “Would you repeat that?” Murphy had asked.

  Ribbentrop had no sense of humor. Of course, neither did Goebbels or Hitler, for that matter. Maybe Murphy was the only one struck by the ridiculousness of the pact. He had written it just as they told him: “Japanese and Nazis Sworn to Protect Free Western Nations.” The story made it through the Nazi censors, and then the staff in New York had rewritten it from a little different point of view. No one had thrown Murphy out of the Adlon Hotel yet, and Herr Hitler was still hoping to persuade the Americans and British to remain uninvolved with Germany’s “private affairs.”

  Tonight a dozen morose reporters gathered in Murphy’s room. They drank gin and tonic and smoked in silence as they waited for the BBC to begin its broadcast of Edward’s final speech as king.

  The British Embassy seemed even more quiet and melancholy than usual. The lights in the upper floors were out, and Murphy guessed that the diplomatic staff was gathered in the large parlor to hear the news. Two British reporters seemed a bit more “in their cups” tonight than usual. Murphy half expected a funeral dirge to erupt from the embassy.

  Amanda Taylor from the London Times came up quietly behind him and stared down at her government’s Berlin outpost.

  “Pretty quiet down there, huh?” said Murphy, glancing at the tall, slim brunette with appreciation.

  Amanda pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, a sure sign that she was about to make a pronouncement. “They’re all daft, if you ask me. Why all the gloooom?” She pronounced the last word aloud
and long, her red lips properly enunciating every vowel. “One would think he had died instead of fallen in love!”

  Someone on the sofa called a little drunkenly, “Yeah. A fella falls in love, he might as well die, Amanda. Same thing.”

  She rolled her wide brown eyes and clicked her tongue in response. “Well, I think all of England should throw them a party. Instead they are—”

  “Kicking them out?” Murphy said with a wry smile.

  “Mrs. Simpson doesn’t need any more wedding parties,” added Johnson. “She’s already been married a couple of times, ain’t she?”

  “Well, so what?” Amanda flipped the curtain. “I think it is positively the most romantic thing . . . the most . . . ” She gestured broadly as she searched for the appropriate word. “For a man to give up his crown and his kingdom—”

  “For a broad?” squeaked Timmons’ tipsy voice. “The guy is nuts.”

  Amanda whirled around and faced the all-male group with the fury of a woman defending chivalry and knights of old. “Romance!” she hissed. “Haven’t you baboons ever heard of the word?”

  “Yeah!” quipped Murphy. “You can buy it right down on Mittelstrasse at the cabaret. It’s real cheap too. About half a crown, Amanda!” A delighted roar of approval rose up from the male ranks. Murphy took a little bow, and Amanda thumped him across the head. She was always a bit too much of an educated Amazon for his taste. But, deciding not to argue further about the matter, he turned back to his watch post.

  “Come on, Amanda,” the guys razzed. “You got no sense of humor?”

  Her lips turned down in an unbecoming pout. “You louts! You simply have no sense of what is noble and—”

  “Yeah. What do we know?”

  “Reporters.” Each man mimicked a line she had said.

  “In Berlin, no less.”

  “Dreary Berlin at Christmastime.”

  “Stuck here while the love story of the century is happening in England. Blast! A king gives up his throne to marry a divorced commoner!”

  “And here we are in old Herr Hitler’s city with nuthin’ to write home about!”

  Murphy laughed but did not join in. He continued to look down at the sidewalk and the jammed streets. Horns blared, and a drizzle caused people to struggle with umbrellas or turn up their collars and run for cover. The guys were right. Berlin at Christmas was a dismal place—at least since Hitler had come to power. People had still been smiling and unafraid when Murphy had first come in 1933. Now, three and a half years later, there was just the constant drizzle of the Reich’s propaganda.

  Amanda bantered on furiously with the unrelenting company of hopeless skeptics. Murphy searched the faces of the pedestrians in the cold avenues below for some hint of their thoughts. He stepped forward, almost pressing his forehead on the glass as he caught sign of a young fraülein raising her arm to a passing taxi. The young woman’s shoulder-length blond hair clung in damp wisps to her finely chiseled face. She was tall and slender, aristocratic looking. Murphy found himself wishing that he was out in the rain or maybe driving the cab. This was not the type of girl he could meet at a cabaret, however. She was more the opera or symphony hall type. He squinted as the taxi splashed to a halt, and a smile of grateful relief spread across her face.

  A dancer? She probably came out of the Academy of Arts on the Pariser Platz.

  “Hey, Murphy!” called Timmons, clanking the gin bottle. “How can a guy get some lime around here?”

  “Call room service,” Murphy replied distractedly as the woman brushed her hair back with a graceful sweep of her hand and spoke to the taxi driver through the window. “And put it on your own tab! I don’t run a restaurant!”

  The woman opened the door of the automobile and slid in, revealing a nicely shaped leg. Then the door shut and she was gone. Murphy peered back toward the British Embassy as the woman’s taxi drove away, leaving behind a wake of rainwater.

  “Let us know when they bring up the hearse to haul King Edward’s portrait out, will you, Murph?” Timmons stirred his drink. “That’s as close as we’re going to get to this story, I’m afraid.”

  Murphy turned around just in time to see Amanda’s back as she stalked out of the room and slammed the door angrily behind her.

  “She’s got no sense of humor!” grumbled Timmons.

  “Yeah!” replied Johnson with a nervous laugh. “That’s why she got this assignment.”

  “Yeah?” Timmons slurped his drink loudly. “So why are all the rest of us here?”

  Johnson stretched out on the floor. “Exile,” he answered gloomily. “Somebody up there just don’t like us no more!”

  5

  Coming Home

  The taxi driver grimaced and pounded his fist against the horn in irritation. The sound simply blended with the impatient blasts of a thousand other horns in the commercial district of Berlin.

  Elisa Lindheim glanced at her watch, then out through the rain-streaked window of the cab. It was not yet five o’clock, but it was already dark. The bright marquees of Berlin’s great department stores reflected on the hoods and windshields of the automobiles that inched down the slick streets. On the sidewalks Christmas shoppers awkwardly clutched packages and umbrellas and vied for places on the crowded trolley cars. No one seemed to notice the Christmas decorations in the glittering shopwindows. In spite of the season, the face of Berlin was grim and cold. Elisa looked up beyond the lights to where the great red banners of the Reich clung to the dripping facades of every building. The black mark of the swastika caused her to shudder involuntarily.

  Elisa had shuddered when she saw the banners the day she arrived. Berlin had changed, and her few days at home had shown her that the swastika was casting its dark shadow everywhere.

  The cab lurched forward a few yards, halting inches from the bumper of a large black Mercedes. The driver beat out a rhythm on his horn again.

  “It seems I might travel faster on foot,” said Elisa.

  “My apologies, Fraülein. It is another of Chancellor Hitler’s building projects, you know. Down with the old Berlin, up with the new. The streets are torn up everywhere. It could be years before traffic is free again.”

  “Years?” Elisa squinted out at the drizzle. “I don’t have that long, I’m afraid.” She opened her handbag. “It is only two blocks to Lindheim’s; I can walk.”

  The cabdriver frowned and appraised Elisa’s finely tailored clothes and the perfect blond curls that framed her face. “Walk if you like, Fraülein”—his voice carried a warning—“but I would not walk to that store for Christmas shopping.”

  Her blue eyes glinted angrily at his words. “Why?” she asked him, even though she already knew what his answer would be.

  He shrugged. “You have been gone from Berlin a long time if you do not remember that this is a Jewish store. Only Jews and very foolish people shop there now,” he concluded, as if he was putting forth a perfectly logical argument.

  Elisa did not reply. All of Germany was filled with such logic these days. She checked the meter and counted out the exact fare. No tip, not even a “Thank you for the information.” Elisa was sure that when the cabbie counted out the change and discovered she had not tipped him, he would curse beneath his breath and remark that she too must be a Jew. On that point he would be right, despite the fact that Elisa had inherited her mother’s “Aryan” good looks.

  “I will walk,” she said curtly, opening the door to a blast of cold wet air. She slammed the door behind her and scurried between stalled vehicles to the crowded sidewalk. Opening her umbrella, she joined the jostling shoppers and breathed deeply. Voices and Christmas music mingled with the cacophony of automobile horns in the city symphony so familiar to Elisa. For a moment it was almost as if nothing had changed while she had been in Vienna. Berlin was still her home, the city of her childhood dreams and happiest hours. Beneath her umbrella, the crooked cross of Hitler’s flag seemed simply another thundercloud that would pass, taking its storm with it.
She would pretend that it was Christmas in Berlin as it always had been and as it always would be.

  She made her way through the throng and was relieved when she pushed open the great glass doors of Lindheim’s Department Store. Shaking the raindrops from her umbrella, she stood to the side and gazed over the crowded aisles with satisfaction. It was Christmas—at least in Lindheim’s. Men and women strolled along the counters. Clerks smiled and offered help. Small booths were set up to provide the famous gift-wrapping service that made even the smallest gift seem extraordinary. The sweet aroma of perfume drifted through the store, and a string quartet played the music of Mozart from a red carpeted platform beside a giant glittering Christmas tree. Marble pillars were wrapped with broad swaths of red cloth, giving them the appearance of giant candy canes.

  Elisa felt a surge of pride for her father. Ironic, she thought, that Christmas should seem most real here, in a Jewish store. She smiled at the thought. Her family was devoutly Lutheran, even though her father clung proudly to his Jewish heritage. Her mother was Aryan, with a lineage pure enough to please Hitler himself. Why then, she wondered, is the issue of being Jewish so all-consuming these days?

  In spite of everything, Theo Lindheim had managed to carry off the image of the most carefree of all holidays for the “master race.” There were no Nazi flags flapping from the roof of his building. The only swastikas to be seen were worn on the armbands of the soldiers who crowded the aisles of Lindheim’s with everyone else.

  Three years ago the sight of such soldiers would have been unthinkable. After the Great War, her father had told her that Germany had been stripped of great tracts of land and denied the right to ever rebuild its army. Elisa shook her head at the uselessness of such decrees. Only twelve years later Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party had burst on the scene. They had taken over the government of the Weimar Republic with only a 33 percent vote. Rearming had begun immediately, as had construction of the concentration camps for those who opposed the Nazis. The Versailles Treaty was merely a slip of paper, since France and Britain had refused to enforce it.