Vienna Prelude

by Bodie Thoene

  God, he prayed silently as he felt excitement grow fierce within him. God, help me. There was no more eloquent prayer to be found. Freedom! Hope swelled, and with that hope came the intense fear that he might be caught before he walked out the doors of the hospital. What if he did not know where he was, what city they had taken him to? What if he was unable to discover a place to hide? He had not thought further ahead than the front door of the building that had held him prisoner. Perhaps it would be enough to draw one breath of free air. Perhaps it would be enough to die a free man, walking up the street. He would not die without a fight, of that he was certain. His hand slid down the cold banister as he reached the landing of the third floor. Below him, a door opened and footsteps clacked against the steps heading up.

  Theo quickly opened the door and stepped into the hallway of the third-floor ward. He heard the crying of children and, on this floor as well, the sound of Hitler’s speech over the radio. No wonder the children cry, he thought grimly.

  He waited by the door until the footsteps on the stairway ascended past him; then he slipped through the door and out onto the landing. Was the man on the steps above him SS? or Gestapo on evening rounds? Certainly. Theo thought, there will be more. In spite of his shaking legs, he quickened his limping pace until he was nearly running down the steps. Just one glimpse of the stars, God, and then you must show me where to go from there! he begged.

  ***

  Tears streaked the face of Karl Wattenbarger as he gazed out on the stormy peaks of the Tyrol. “And so it is finished,” he said to Franz quietly.

  Their guns were propped in the corner by the door. All they had needed was one shout from Chancellor Schuschnigg, and they would have swarmed out to spill Nazi blood in the passes of the Alps.

  “Not even a shot,” Franz whispered as though he could not believe the day’s events. Had they not all hoped and trusted?

  Marta’s voice was hoarse with exhaustion. “What else was there to do? Schuschnigg explained. The Italians refused to stand by us. The British wired to say they would not help. And the French would not even answer his calls.”

  “We would have died alone.” Karl sounded angry. Not at his wife but at those who had brought Austria to her knees.

  Marta’s eyes brimmed with tears as she gazed up toward the suffering Christ above the Herrgottseck. “My husband,” she said in a hushed voice, choked with emotion. “My sons, you sons who are left to me—if we may not by the mercy of God die as free people, then we must, as our Lord Jesus, die helping others to become free.” She raised her chin slightly as the tears began to flow. “Nine little souls have been entrusted into our care.” She stubbornly refused to yield to the tears and brushed them away. “And with the merciful help of God we are put here to help them become free! So we cannot spill Nazi blood in the passes! We will fight them another way, and pray to God that He will send us little ones to save from their brutality!”

  She had said it all. Karl nodded. “Yes, my dear wife. Brave Mama.” He put out his arms to her. “Then the spilling of our blood will have some meaning in heaven, ja?” She embraced him.

  Only then did she let herself weep openly. A cross had come to them, and they must bear it for the sake of Jesus, for the sake of His little children. Sons and husband of her life as well must now be offered back to God in this service. Marta wept as though her heart would break. How she had hoped it would not come to this! Oh, how she had prayed the cup of suffering would pass Austria and her own little Herrgottseck beneath the crucifix.

  ***

  Now Hitler was speaking over the radio. Elisa sat rigidly in the chair across from Murphy as the madman raved about the common racial bond between Austrians and Germans. The greater German Reich was about to be established!

  The growling voice had brought Elisa back to herself. She smoldered silently, her blue eyes fixed fiercely on the radio as though she wanted to smash it.

  She stood and switched it off, then whirled around. “What’s the use of listening to such lies?” she snapped. “They will decimate the orchestra. Imprison doctors and professors and anyone who does not share that racial brotherhood! Then they will do the same to those they claim kinship with if there is a question asked!”

  “Pack your things.” Murphy’s tone was low and urgent.

  “Not until Leah and Shimon come!”

  “If they haven’t made it here by now—”

  “They are family to me! I won’t leave without them.”

  “The Judenplatz is sealed. I saw it myself.”

  “I’m not leaving Vienna without them.”

  “They have their visas—to Palestine!” Murphy argued.

  “And you know just how much that means to the Nazis, don’t you?” Her eyes were blazing.

  Murphy wished he had taken her away while she was frightened and meek. They could have had this argument across the border in Czechoslovakia or Switzerland. “Elisa, you can’t do anything for them if they are caught, anyway.”

  “Like my father? No one lifted a finger for him. Not even God! And if I, who belong to God, do not help, then how can God help?”

  She is talking nonsense again, Murphy thought. “Yes, like your father. Elisa, it is time to save your own neck. Do you hear me? Do you know what is happening this very minute on the frontier beyond Salzburg? in the mountains of the Tyrol? A dam has just burst. The flood is moving toward us. We can get out of Vienna now, right now, and no Nazi soldier will stop to question us. But if we wait—”

  She wavered. “My passport. My American passport.”

  “They can arrest whoever they choose.”

  She shook her head slowly. The fear reared again. “Murphy.” She twisted the wedding band on her finger. “Please. An hour. We must wait one more hour.” She seemed about to cry again.

  Murphy looked at the clock. “Pack then. It is eight-thirty. We are leaving at nine-thirty. With or without them.”

  She stared at him, her eyes wide. He wondered if she was seeing the armies, hearing the jackboots. After a minute she nodded in agreement and turned to pack a few precious belongings.

  Murphy gazed at the silent radio. He too could imagine the armies of tanks and troop lorries streaming into Austria at this very moment. He was worried. There was no guarantee, even with American passports, that they could cross into Czechoslovakia tonight. Tomorrow might be too late.

  ***

  Theo was painfully aware of the prisoner-identification band locked on to his wrist as he reached the lobby level of the hospital. He shoved it up under the sleeve of the wrinkled white shirt he wore, then stood breathlessly before the door that would lead him out into the main lobby of the hospital building.

  He ran his hand over his chin. He was smooth shaven, thanks to the meticulous care of the nurses, but his short hair was no doubt disheveled. He passed his fingers through it in an attempt to straighten it; then, almost automatically, he patted the pocket of the orderly’s trousers and discovered a wallet and comb. He held back a gasp, and with trembling hands, he combed his hair. There was no cash in the wallet, no change in the pockets; with a disappointed grimace, he tossed the wallet into the corner under the stairs.

  He knew that beyond the door, a Legion of Hitler’s henchmen would be patrolling the lobby, sitting in chairs and reading newspapers. There was no public place in Germany that was exempt from the watchers. “One glimpse of the stars outside the walls, and all the rest does not matter,” he reminded himself. He was seized with an urge to hide beneath the stairs with the stolen wallet. But he raised his head. He was once again Theo Lindheim, fighter pilot, hero of the Fatherland. And he opened the door.

  The lobby was indeed crowded. Young children strained against the grasp of their mothers. Old men waited, staring at nothing. And everywhere Theo looked, neatly dressed men in suits sat reading newspapers.

  Theo stepped out from the stairwell. Across the lobby, a million miles from where he stood, was a wide set of double doors. They swung outward. Traffic roare
d by on the broad boulevard just beyond the sidewalk.

  Like a man in a dream, Theo forced himself to place one foot in front of the other. He wanted to run and slam himself against the doors, but he did not. At a slow deliberate pace, he could control his limp somewhat. No one seemed to notice that he had no coat, no hat. He was simply one more bony old man in the lobby, walking toward the doors. To freedom. To the stars and colors. Blaring horns. Women with shopping bags. Men on bicycles. Shops and bakeries. Cars whizzing by and streetcars clattering over the rails. Thirty paces. Twenty. He counted his steps. So close. He reached out his arms to open the door.

  A man in a pin-striped suit stepped in front of him, and Theo stopped. Gestapo? The man shoved the doors open ahead of Theo, then stepped aside and let him pass through ahead of him.

  “Grüss Gott.” The man tipped his hat. “And God help us all.”

  “Grüss Gott,” Theo mumbled as he stared in wonder at the stranger who skipped away down the steps of the hospital. “Grüss Gott?” he asked as he let his eyes sweep upward toward the stars that sparkled above the city.

  Theo staggered at what he saw: the great spires of St. Stephan’s Cathedral were framed against the evening sky! Beyond that he could make out the top of the Vienna State Opera House and fragments of the Hofburg palace-fortress! Just then a streetcar trundled by. Two young men were unfurling a banner from the rear platform. Theo shook his head, unable to believe what he saw. The lettering on the car’s destination sign read Musikverein, but the flag on the streetcar was the bloody-red banner of a Nazi swastika!

  All around him, the red-and-white banners of Austria were being torn away from the facades of buildings. It was cold, but Theo did not feel the chill.

  He had stepped from one nightmare into another. Vienna, shrouded in swastikas! He wanted to rage against what he saw, to shout that it could never be! But he remained silent. He stopped and picked up a soggy pamphlet: Yes for Austria! Yes for Schuschnigg! He dropped the thing onto the sidewalk and gazed up past the red swastika banners to the star-framed spires of St. Stephan’s. For this moment he was still a free man. Elisa might be somewhere in the city. Elisa! And he would find her; he must find her if she was!

  Then he convulsed with coughing as the chill wind pierced him. He had no coat. No hat. His spindly legs could barely carry him. This was the first time since Dachau that he had walked more than a few shaky steps to the window of his hospital room. He scrabbled in his pocket in hopes of finding a shilling for tram fare; he would even ride on that car with the swastika flapping behind if it would only take him to the Musikverein. But there was not one coin in the pockets. The wind howled louder as he lowered his head and struggled against it. He would walk. He had survived Dachau, the quarries, typhus, and by God’s grace he must have been mistaken for the Austrian Professor Stern and brought to Vienna.

  He knew he must force himself to move, or all that would be for nothing! Tell my daughter I am here, God, he prayed in numb confusion as the very ground seemed to slope upward against his progress, and the harsh freezing wind sucked his breath away. A hundred steps from the doors of the hospital, he had to stop and rest against a streetlamp. Carloads of hooting young Nazis raced by. Theo drew himself up, determined to place one foot in front of the other even though the pavement resisted him and the cobblestones threatened to hurl themselves into his face! “Elisa…she is…here,” he panted. It was almost a mile to the Musikverein. He would begin his search there.

  47

  Night Vigil

  The minutes dragged by like hours. There still were no footsteps on the stairs outside Elisa’s apartment. She had barely spoken for the last fifty minutes as she packed a few of her most precious things into a small scuffed suitcase. She took the angel from the lampshade and slipped it into her pocket.

  If Murphy had noticed, he did not comment. Instead he paced back and forth in front of the sofa, paused every minute or so to look out the window onto the dark, deserted street. Then he would glance at his watch and press his lips tightly together.

  She knew that he would make her leave when the hour had passed. She prayed silently, desperately, for the safety of Shimon and Leah. Murphy was right. If they could have gotten away, they would be here now. She knew that, and yet she could not desert them. She would wait out this horrible vigil until the last second had ticked off.

  In this moment she relived her last night in Berlin, the night she had left with her father. This apartment had been home. Full of happy thoughts, and hopes—so many hopes. But all hopes died here tonight with the final words of Schuschnigg. The whole terrible night in Berlin had returned as a haunting echo, a counterpoint in her life.

  At last she broke the silence. “When we left home, my father and I”—she kept her eyes steady on the case of the Guarnerius—“I played for him. And for Berlin.” She had not thought of playing now. She simply could not think of anything else to say to Murphy. “It is all over, isn’t it?” she asked. “Like it was that night we left Berlin?”

  He answered with a nod. She could see the pain in his eyes for her. Somehow he knew her desperate hope that her friends would come, and already he grieved for her.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  He was apologizing for stealing her hope away. He had been right, of course. Everything he had said was true, but she knew he wished he had been wrong. She loved him for his grief. He had surprised her so often, and now he surprised her again.

  He leaned down and took the Guarnerius case from the small stack of belongings by the door. “Will you”—he faltered—“you have never played for me . . . alone. And now . . . Vienna is . . .”

  “Vanishing,” she finished for him. She understood what he felt. Could they watch it go without one last loving good-bye? She took the case from him and removed the instrument. She managed to smile at Murphy as she tucked it against her chin, and he stepped forward as if to ask one more favor. “What?” she asked him.

  He answered by reaching out to touch her cheek and sliding his hand down to the gleaming wood of the violin. “It is part of you.” He held her eyes. “I have always wanted to touch the two of you together.” Was he embarrassed or just flushed with emotion? “You . . . your soul . . . the violin is your voice. So pray now, Elisa, and your prayers will be heard.” He stepped back and stood with his arms crossed as he leaned against the door.

  Elisa raised bow to strings, and for the last time, she prayed within these walls. She raised her heart for Vienna, for those who would remain behind and those who would leave and not return. It was over, over, over! And the melody cried out her anguish to God. Did He listen? Did He also weep for what was and what never would be again?

  Outside the wind moaned through the streets of the great city, and all hope fled before it.

  ***

  Theo stood outside the Musikverein. It was dark. Deserted. The wind tore at his thin, shabby clothing. Baggy trousers flapped around his legs. He was a ghost, a frail shadow of what he once had been. He was seeing the past and hearing the music of his youth as though he were an onlooker.

  It was here he had first heard his beloved Anna play the Schubert sonata. Here that he had fallen in love with her. Once a young, strong German man had waited for her each night just there, at the bottom of the stage doorsteps.

  Now that young man had grown old. A year in Dachau had laid twenty years on his back, and he could barely stand against the force of the wind. But he had come back. Somehow, miraculously, he was here again, and he would find the first child of their love. He would find Elisa if she was still here.

  The old caretaker inside the Musikverein was drunk. He smelled of schnapps, and his eyes were red as he swayed before Theo just inside the door.

  “Elisa Linder? Ja. She was here only yesterday.” He squinted as though he were trying to see Theo more clearly. “But that was yesterday and this is tonight. I don’t know if she’ll be back. Maybe nobody will come back. They’ll bring in Germans to play. Aryans from Munich and
Berlin. Everyone here will go into hiding, I suppose.”

  “Did she say anything yesterday?” Theo questioned. Even his voice had aged to a desperate whisper.

  “Hello. Good-bye. How are you?” He shook his head drunkenly. “What is there to say?” He cocked his eye at Theo. “You better get out too, old man. You know what the Nazis do to beggars. You better leave Vienna too.”

  Theo had already left the building. The caretaker’s warning was lost in the howling wind that carried no snow or rain, only bitter cold.

  As he looked at the quickly vanishing pedestrians, he felt confused, unsure where to go next. He was not even certain that he could remember any longer where Elisa’s apartment was. That had been in another lifetime. Before . . .

  His eyes returned to the spires of St. Stephan’s. Once he had known Vienna like the back of his hand. The city was the same. It was his hand that was different now.

  “A five-minute walk from the Musikverein!” Elisa had exclaimed that day. They had rented the place for a year and renewed it again the next year . . . but where?

  The cold stung his eyes. He blinked up toward the bright crystal stars and prayed for help. He had come so far. Would he now die alone in Vienna?

  His legs were shaking, but he set out once again. Pieces of torn Austrian flag blew past him. The shouts and laughter of the young Nazis echoed in the air. It was victorious, exultant laughter.

  “Heil Hitler!” a young man, perhaps eighteen years old, shouted as though he was testing the sound of the words. The others shouted with him.

  “Hey, old man!” They spotted Theo. “Are you drunk?”

  Theo did not acknowledge the challenge. He continued to stagger forward, hoping that they would simply pass him by. Suddenly he found himself surrounded. They jeered at him, spit on him, reached out to push him from one side to the other of the tight pack. One final shove hurled him out of the circle and onto the sidewalk.