by Bodie Thoene
He took the envelope from her and read the instructions aloud. “Deliver to Herr John Murphy. Row 10, right aisle.” He studied her for a moment. “Yes, of course, Eleeeza. I will take it.”
“Thank you. I’ll call a taxi. If you will give it to the doorman, ask him to take it to Herr Murphy just before the performance begins.” She handed him enough cash to pay for the taxi and to tip the doorman at the concert hall, as well as a handsome tip for himself.
He merely bowed again, as if sensing that it would be inappropriate to ask any more. This was more than a favor; it was an assignment, and she was paying him a week’s wages.
“Anything else?” In affairs of the heart, he was always discreet with his tenants. Elisa Linder had simply never shown any indication that her heart was vulnerable to such involvement. No doubt Herr Haupt figured that this was a farewell note, even though Elisa knew he had not even been aware that she had even said hello to any man since she had lived in the building. At least this was something!
“No, danke.” She was embarrassed. “Just make sure you tell the doorman not to give it to him until just before the performance. And”—she frowned—“I will not be here tonight.”
He pursed his lips and nodded vigorously. “Ja, Eleeeza.” Slipping the note into the pocket of his coat, he took on a very official air.
She was certain that Murphy would get the note.
***
Elisa watched from the window of her flat as Herr Haupt got into the taxi. He had dressed for the occasion in his finest three-piece suit and had replaced the kippa on his head with a dignified Hamburg hat. He looked the part of an ambassador. Thus ended her perfect day; the decision had been made. She would go now and call Thomas, hear his voice for the first time in eighteen months. Why, then, did she feel so unhappy?
27
Change of Plans
Murphy clutched the red velvet arms of his seat as if the concert hall were an airplane about to take off. All around him the audience buzzed with anticipation. Musicians wandered onto the stage to mingle the noise of their instruments with the trumpeting, hooting clamor that emanated from the stage before the concert.
Elisa’s seat was still empty. Murphy searched the wings as each musician emerged. Where was she? Didn’t she know that just her presence was symphony enough for him? Leah had not yet come onstage either, but tonight she was to solo; and Elisa had informed him that as soloist, Leah would come out after the others. Probably the two of them were backstage chatting.
He shifted nervously in his chair and glanced down at the evening’s program. A watched pot never boils, he reminded himself. If he would calm down and read, Elisa would be there when he looked up. Tonight she would smile at him. She would play for him. He would nudge the matron in satin and furs beside him and say, “That’s my girl.”
Tonight they would play a cello concert by Dvořák. Murphy recognized the name—the guy who spent his summer in Spillville, Iowa. He loved America; maybe that was what Elisa would tell him tonight in her music—that she wanted to go to America with him after all. Just like Dvořák. The thought did not calm Murphy. He looked up again, scanning the rows of string players. Still no Elisa!
Clearing his throat loudly, he looked back to the program and began to read. Tonight he would be able to talk to her a little bit about what he had heard. Dvořák learned of the death of Josephina of whom he had been extremely fond. His song “Leave Me Alone” was a favorite of hers. Murphy frowned. “Leave me alone”? Was that the message he was supposed to listen for?
He rolled up the program and thumped it against his thigh. Still no Elisa. A few more musicians straggled in. Maybe she had a solo too. Maybe she would come in after everybody else. After Leah. After the conductor. Where is she?
A short, balding man with a gray goatee came out to sound the note of the concertmaster. Where is Rudy Dorbransky? Elisa’s chair remained vacant even as applause rose up around him and the houselights drifted down into darkness.
A soft tap on his shoulder caused him to turn. A uniformed usher said his name. “John Murphy?” The whisper was barely heard; the conductor emerged, and the hall rang with thunderous applause.
Murphy nodded and the usher handed him a white square envelope. Murphy could not read what was lettered across the front. He strained to see in the dimness of the auditorium. His eyes darted from the envelope to the empty seat, then back again. More applause sounded as Leah Goldblatt came onto the stage. Applause, and applause, and applause, but the petite cellist looked strained in her acceptance of the ovation. Where is Elisa?
In an unmistakable gesture Leah looked toward the vacant chair in the first violin section. Then she turned her gaze full on row ten, right aisle!
Murphy swallowed hard. Leah was worried too. In that one terrible instant he knew that Elisa was not coming. He looked at the white square in his perspiring hands. Then he stood and dashed out of the hall, even as the applause around him faded away.
***
“Lasst mich allein! Leave me alone!” The message of Elisa’s note was much clearer than any music could be. Murphy stared grimly at the little Christmas tree in his room. The whole day had been some grotesque and cruel joke.
“Yeah, Murphy!” He threw his jacket angrily onto the bed. “Get the message, buddy? Sure, she’ll play for you! Just like Dvor . . . whatever! Leave me alone! Sure—just listen real good tonight; you bet she’ll play for you. She wasn’t even there.” He picked up her letter again, able only to see the words: I have loved a man for many years. . . . I will leave Vienna with him . . . I have belonged to him. There was no doubt about her meaning.
With a cry, Murphy wadded up the paper and threw it at the tree. It stuck in the branches, and suddenly all the tiny wooden angels began the melody “Leave Me Alone!”
“You had it coming, Murphy!” he yelled at himself as he glimpsed his own agonized reflection in the mirror. “She tried to tell you that first night and you didn’t listen! Taught you a lesson, didn’t she? Huh?”
And what a lesson! Couldn’t she have chosen an easier way? Yes, the day had been perfect. She had made it perfect, and then pulled the rug out from under him.
He opened the closet door and stood staring blankly at his own clothes for a moment; then, with a shake of his head, he pulled out his suitcase and began to toss his clothes into it. He would leave her alone! She was leaving Vienna—that was all he had been worried about for the last year. Now some other guy had taken care of his worries. He wouldn’t have to think about her anymore, wouldn’t worry if Austria did fall to Nazi Germany! Austria and Vienna could roast, for all Murphy cared!
He picked up his telephone and called the front desk. “This is John Murphy. What time does the last plane leave Vienna? For where? I don’t care. For anywhere. I just want to be on the plane—” He stared at the angels. At Joseph looking so longingly at Mary. At least Joseph had not made a fool of himself. Murphy had won the Fool of the Year Contest.
“Paris?” he said into the phone.
He thought quickly. Paris has a branch of the International News Service. Sure, anyplace is home to me where there’s an INS office.
“Sure, book me on that flight, will you? Great. An hour? Sure.”
That gives me lots of time. I’ll need somebody to take back this monkey suit for me tomorrow.
“Right. Thanks.”
Murphy finished packing in record time. He even had a few minutes to pull the angels off the tree branches and pitch them back into their box. “Ten . . . eleven . . . ” He would leave eleven angels. Didn’t every man need at least one souvenir of his broken heart? Almost with reverence Murphy plucked the last angel from the tree and slipped her into his pocket. The others he would leave for Elisa and her boyfriend—a wedding present.
Carrying his small suitcase and the box of carvings, he hailed a taxi and gave the address of the airport, with one stop in between.
***
It took an hour before the call was put through to the Pa
ris telephone number Thomas had given her. Now, waiting in the public telephone office, Elisa stared blankly at the wall where government posters urging support of Chancellor Schuschnigg and an independent Austria hung.
She felt strangely emotionless, as though she were an spectator, watching herself pay the operator, watching herself sit down to wait, watching herself watching herself. Had she ever been so numb?
Of course she was doing the right thing. Could there be any doubt? She had committed herself to Thomas six years before. She had committed her heart to loving him even if he never loved her with the tenderness that she had longed for. She loved Thomas, didn’t she? Wasn’t this the moment she had prayed for and waited for? Then, why am I so numb? Even the whispered song of lament had died within her after she had watched Herr Haupt take the letter.
The voice of the operator interrupted her. “Fraülein, your call to Paris has been put through. Fraülein?”
Elisa turned her head to look at the woman behind the tall switchboard. “Paris?”
“Yes, Fraülein,” she urged. “You can take it in that booth. I will transfer the call there.”
So the moment had arrived. Thomas waited on the other end of the line. Elisa moved toward the walnut phone booth unhurriedly. She shut the glass door behind her and the light came on, illuminating yet another poster proclaiming Austrian independence against a foreign aggression. She stared at the phone for an instant, unsure that she would pick it up. Then she watched her hand grasp the receiver and heard her own voice say the name, “Thomas.”
A faraway voice crackled into her ear. “Elisa? Elisa, darling?” He had forgotten his own warning about not using names. “Is that you?” Thomas—familiar, yet strange to her. Eager, hopeful, breathless. The way she had once felt about him.
“Yes, Thomas, it’s me.”
“Darling!” The voice was almost tearful in its relief. “I was so afraid. So afraid you wouldn’t get my letter; then so afraid that once you had it you would throw it away.”
“No, Thomas. I would never throw your letter away.” Her heart finished the line silently: Like you threw me away.
Then he said the words. “I love you, darling! I have always loved you! Can you hear me, Elisa? Do you hear what I am saying?”
“Yes. I can hear you.” She listened to her own words. Could she not find some slight intonation of excitement? Forte, Elisa!
“Are you all right?” He sounded worried.
“I . . . I don’t know. Not about anything anymore.” She startled herself, not intending to express the slightest doubt to him now that he had come back to her.
“Yes.” He sounded understanding. “I knew you might feel that way. But when we are together, you will see! You will see that you are the most important thing in my life!”
Maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe she didn’t really care anymore what was important in his life. “If only you could have said these things last year!” Now the emotion came—questioning, accusing. Why had he stood by while Theo Lindheim was arrested? What did it matter what Thomas felt? Her father was gone. Their family shattered, run out of Germany. And Thomas, and men like him, had let it happen.
“Last year I thought I could make a difference if I stayed. I have been in Paris since last Christmas. And Elisa—about your father—I know how hurt you all are. He was like a father to me as well.”
Then you are the worst kind of Judas. The thought stunned Elisa with its clarity. “Thomas,” she suddenly decided, “I cannot come to Paris.”
“Then I will come to Vienna. I know there is much we have to heal.”
“No. My life is good here. I have found a life of my own.”
“Another man?”
She did not answer. Thoughts of Murphy, his eyes full and warm, came to her in a rush. And then she remembered the letter. “No, I mean, I don’t know. Thomas, I . . . I think I may be falling in love with another man—”
The line crackled so badly that for a moment she thought they might have been disconnected. Then his voice faded in again. “Don’t worry. We will be better than we were before. I’m coming to Vienna, darling. After the first of the year I have some time. I am coming to Vienna!” He did not wait for her reply. “You are mine. You have always been mine.” The voice faded out again.
Elisa felt suddenly desperate to see Murphy. “I have to go now.”
“I love you, darling! Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.” She hung up and stepped from the booth, feeling suddenly awake, and icy cold with a new fear inside. Murphy! Have I let him go? Have I chased him away? He loves me. I see it in his eyes. Maybe he never got the letter. Oh, God, please, make him not get the letter!
***
Her skin was ashen as she jumped from the taxi and ran up the steps of the hall. She could hear the deep, mellow sound of Leah’s cello, but she did not think about music now; she only thought about him. Row ten, aisle seat.
“Fraülein Linder!” the orchestra manager whispered hoarsely as she came backstage. “Are you not home in bed?”
“No.”
“You look terrible! Go home!” he insisted.
Elisa tiptoed to the wings of the stage and stared out past the orchestra, past Leah, past the maestro and the footlights. The aisle seat, row ten, was vacant! She stood, shaking her head in dismay. The hand of the orchestra manager tapped her lightly on the shoulder, then pulled her back.
“Go home! You are delirious to be here. Rudy has not come either, but they are managing.”
She staggered past him, then stumbled down the steps and back to where her taxi waited.
“Where to, Fraülein?”
“Sacher Hotel. Please hurry.”
It was only a short distance, but Elisa was unsure that her legs could carry her now. Please, God, let him be there.
***
Murphy took the steps of Elisa’s apartment two at a time. His taxi waited down below in the street. He would not stay, even if she asked him. He had already decided that. She had said it all in the letter, and he would not force himself on her again. But the least he could do is leave her the angels—say good-bye and good luck, maybe give her a piece of his mind for stringing him along like a ten-pound catfish on a line.
He knocked on the door, softly at first. Then he waited and knocked again harder. A door opened on the floor below and Murphy heard a voice call up. “You are looking for Eleeeza?”
“I have a package for her,” he called down the stairwell.
“Well, Eleeeza is not at home.”
“When will she be back?”
“I cannot say. She had to meet a young man, I think.”
Murphy did not answer. All the things he wanted to say to her now made no difference. A stiff jolt of sick disappointment told him the truth about himself. He had not really come here to bring her a box of angels. He stood at the door and knocked, hoping she would let him in, into her heart—like the music of Bach in her secret place. He wanted to tell her, wanted to ask her, wanted . . . her.
“It’s just as well,” Murphy said, now resigned to the horrible truth. “Just as well she isn’t here.” He placed the box carefully at her threshold like an offering.
“You want me to tell Eleeza you were here?”
“No. No. It doesn’t matter. I’m just a messenger. Tell her a messenger came. Danke.”
Murphy did not look to the right or the left as he marched down the stairs. He did not touch the banister. Her hands had caressed the smooth wood a thousand times, and he feared some magic in her touch might remain there and would somehow root him at the foot of her steps to wait until she came back again. With him, whoever he was. Murphy had made enough of a fool of himself.
The cold air felt good on his face as he emerged from the building. He stood in the street and inhaled to clear his head of the sense of her nearness. Then he squared his shoulders and got back into the cab.
“The airport,” he said quietly. “I’m going to Paris for Christmas.”
***
Breathlessly Elisa ran to the front desk of the Sacher Hotel. An indolent, dignified clerk peered at her from over the top of his reading glasses.
“Please,” she said urgently, “can you tell me the room number for John Murphy?”
“It is against policy. We call up to rooms, you see, before we give out the room number. Suppose he didn’t want to see you?”
“Call him. Tell him Elisa is here, and there has been a terrible mistake. Please call him up. I was supposed to meet him here this afternoon, but I was delayed.”
The clerk’s face registered amusement at her eagerness. He smirked unpleasantly. “Well, I am sure I cannot call him up, Fraülein.”
“Please. If you tell him it is Elisa—”
“I am very sorry, Fraülein. Herr John Murphy has checked out, you see. He left here”—he glanced at his watch—“half an hour ago. I’m sure his plane has left by now.”
“Plane?”
“Yes, Fraülein. He had a plane to catch.”
“To where?” Her voice was too eager, too pleading. The clerk had seen such cases before. A young female trying to track down a man . . .
“I am sure I can’t tell you where he has gone, Fraülein,” he answered as his duty demanded. “But Herr Murphy is most certainly gone.”
***
When Herr Haupt called up to Elisa on the stairway, reporting the successful completion of his mission, she simply thanked him, picked up the box on the threshold, and inserted the key into her lock as quickly as she could. She had no strength left for more than that.
Sinking down onto the bed, she opened the package. “Murphy,” she said dully, staring without seeing at the jumble of tiny wings and golden strings. Without bothering to undress, she lay back and pulled the blanket over herself before she slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep.
***
Elisa had lost all track of time and place when the urgent voice of Leah pulled her reluctantly from her sleep.
