Warsaw Requiem

by Bodie Thoene

  “Put it on!” Charles plopped his candy into his mouth and sat back to watch the show.

  Doc nodded his big head. “One. Hold your breath!” He held his breath and fumbled with the mask. His face got redder. He let out his breath and exclaimed, “How can I hold my breath and recite the blasted steps of this torture?”

  “Okay. We’ll say it,” Murphy instructed. “You do it.” Then Elisa held up her hands like a conductor, and they all recited the process together:

  “One, Hold your breath. Two. Hold mask in front of face with thumbs inside . . . INSIDE, yes. Like that . . . straps. Three . . .” Three was always Charles’s favorite part to watch because people who did not practice always made such awkward faces.

  “Thrust chin well forward into mask.” Out went the chin that was hardly a chin at all. Doc Grogan was mostly shoulders from the ears down, like a bulldog. Like one of Winston Churchill’s bulldogs, Charles thought. He stuck out his lower jaw and bit his upper lip as he struggled to fit his face into the mask. This was the best-ever after-dinner entertainment! The absolute best!

  Elisa laughed and held her big pregnant belly. She begged Doc not to be so funny because it hurt to laugh now that she was so far along. Murphy raised his eyebrows and made his best donkey laugh. A sort of Hoo-haw-haw-hoo. Charles and Louis hung on to each other lest they fall out of their chairs at the sight of their taskmaster being taken to task!

  At last the bright red face was secure behind the googly eyes of the locust mask. Orange hair protruded from the straps like antenna. Doc Grogan tugged the straps secure to complete the instruction of number three. Then, because everyone else was unable to speak, he completed the process.

  “Number four!” he shouted through the mast. “Run finger around face-piece, taking care head-straps are not twisted.” He crossed his arms in satisfaction and turned to address Charles and Louis. “Wait until your next lesson, me boy-os.”

  They were not intimidated. Still they hooted on as the eyes of the gas mask fogged up.

  “Can I take it off and have some candy too?” Off came the torture device, leaving a flaming red crease around Doc’s face. Murphy tossed him a candy as he smoothed his hair and glared at the thing. “Don’t make me do it again. I beg you. Mary and Martha! What a torment! They would be laughing at us in Berlin if they could see what we do in London for entertainment!”

  Tears of glee were wiped away. Would the grown-ups talk politics again tonight? Of course.

  “Not that we will ever need these things,” Elisa said as she stacked the dishes. “But at least the British government is finally taking Hitler seriously.”

  Ever since the Nazis had taken over Czechoslovakia in March, the sandbags around the government buildings in London had been sprouting, multiplying, and finally towering like great lumpy heaps of laundry.

  They were there around the Houses of Parliament, at the steps of Whitehall, and the foreign office. They protected the trenches dug in Kensington Park and Hyde Park and Grosvener Square, to name just a few.

  It was not as if most people really expected war, or actually believed that Germany would press the issue of taking Danzig and the Polish corridor from Poland. Herr Hitler would not go that far, would he? “You bet he would,” Murphy said. That was why he took the gas masks seriously. But for most of England, all of this was just precaution, a way to soothe the nerves of the more jittery types in government. And when the sandbags split after the spring rains and weeds began to sprout, there was a big row in Parliament about the matter. After all, there was supposed to be sand in the sandbags, not just ordinary garden soil! Then a member of Prime Minister Chamberlain’s party suggested that the sandbags serve double duty. Why not plant a few carrots and turnips in the things?

  This idea got the biggest laugh the House had heard for weeks.

  That same week it was decided that something must be done to demonstrate that England was serious about defense. Murphy was among a troop of fifty journalists who set sail on board the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, with the earl of Stanhope, first lord of the admiralty, and Colonel Beck, Poland’s foreign minister.

  As the ship plowed across the Channel, tours were given of the bridge and the galleys, the officers’ quarters and the engine room. The day was crowned with an exclusive showing of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Midway through the film, two dozen officers hustled out. The movie was stopped in the middle of vital action. The first lord then stood before the image of Dopey the dwarf and announced that the order had been given to put the entire British fleet on alert. “That explains these empty seats,” he said calmly as Dopey looked down from the screen.

  Murphy felt certain that Walt Disney would be relieved that no one had walked out on his epic by choice.

  Photographs of the first lord of the admiralty being upstaged by an animated dwarf made the front pages of a number of publications. LIFE magazine dedicated a whole page to it, and the British government could almost hear the great guffaws of the German Reich.

  Maybe Britain and France were finally taking Germany seriously, but it was a sure bet that Hitler no longer felt that either great nation was much more threat than a band of Disney dwarfs on the rampage.

  “You think there will be war then?” Dr. Grogan asked with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

  Elisa hustled Charles and Louis up the stairs and out of earshot from Murphy’s answer.

  He sipped his coffee and waited until their bedroom door was closed. “Unless you want to be in the thick of it,” Murphy replied quietly, “I’d start looking into fares back to the States.” He raised his eyes toward the room of Charles and Louis. “When it starts—”

  “When?”

  “When it starts, I’m sending them home. To my folks’ place in Pennsylvania. London is a two-hour bomb run from Berlin. I saw what the German Air Force did in Spain, and they were not even officially there.” He made the slow whistling sound of a bomb dropping and then the thud of an explosion as he gestured out the window.

  Grogan inclined his massive head thoughtfully. “You can’t think it will come to that. Chamberlain has given the Führer carte blanche, hasn’t he? As long as jolly old England is not involved?”

  Murphy shrugged. Nobody ever said that a thirty-year-old speech therapist was supposed to understand what was going on. “You’d better make all the notes you can about the structure and use of the English language. Unless something happens, Hitler figures that the whole world will be speaking German. You get me?”

  Doc opened his mouth as if to argue the point, but a heavy knocking at the door interrupted what was proving to be an interesting discussion.

  With a raised finger, Murphy warned Grogan to hold his thought while he answered the knock.

  Harvey Terrill, the overworked night desk editor of TENS, burst through the door. Waving an envelope, he pushed past Murphy. “This came by special courier, Boss! Look! Look at this! Addressed to Elisa Murry, care of TENS London!” He slapped the envelope into Murphy’s hand. He stammered on, pointing to the return address. “Lori Ibsen! Ain’t that the kid who got Timmons into trouble in Berlin? The kid you been lookin’ for all these months?”

  Murphy turned to call for Elisa, but she was already rushing down the stairs.

  “Yes!” Elisa was laughing. “Lori! Murphy! Call Mama! Call Aunt Helen! Oh, Murphy!”

  7

  Never Too Much for God

  Charles and Louis banged on the steam radiator with a wooden spoon. This was the signal to Freddie and Hildy Frutschy in their apartment below that they were needed.

  Freddie was sent in the automobile to fetch Anna and Theo and Aunt Helen while Murphy telephoned Winston Churchill with the news that the children of Pastor Ibsen were alive and well in Danzig. From there calls were made to the British home office and the decision was made that the children should be contacted through the British Consulate in Danzig.

  While Hildy Frutschy made pots of coffee and tea, Harvey Terrill hurried down to the café to purch
ase a chocolate cake. Then an unplanned celebration began.

  Pastor Williams arrived, and people from the church came to embrace Aunt Helen and see the letter with their own eyes. It was a miracle, it seemed, after so long! And was there any word of Pastor Ibsen as well?

  No. The miracle was only partly complete. Lori and Jamie Ibsen had escaped Germany along with three other children, Jacob and Mark Kalner and Alfie Halder. They were all quite safe, but the letter asked if Elisa had heard from Pastor Karl and Helen Ibsen or the Kalners.

  We thought to travel to Prague as Father instructed us, but now that the Nazis are there as well, we do not know where to go. There is no office for TENS news here in Danzig, or we might have gone. The people here in Danzig are German, and many among them now favor Hitler. We have heard the threats of the Nazis against Poland, and although we are well and not threatened personally, we fear what may be coming here to Danzig. I pray that you will receive this letter if you are still in London, as you were where Mother spoke of you. I am not certain of the spelling of your last name but pray this will fall into the right hands and be directed to you. We miss our parents very much. Have you any word . . . ?

  Helen Ibsen sat in the rocking chair by the window and read the letter from her daughter in English to whoever wanted to hear it. Always at this place in the writing she cried as she had the first time.

  “My children are alive,” she said. “You see? The Lord is still in the business of miracles!” Pressing the letter to her heart she added softly. “And if Jamie and Lori are safe, then perhaps also my Karl, ja? It is not too much to hope for. Not too much for God!”

  ***

  Lodgings had been arranged for Allan Farrell in the Bloomsbury district of London. Mills University Hotel at 17 Gower Street was located not far from the British Museum. The charge of fifty shillings a week for students still would have been steep for Allan had it not been for the supplement of his meager income by a modest bank account from the IRA.

  The money was transferred weekly from New York as though he had some caring benefactor in the States. “A small stipend,” Colin had told him. “Call it a reward for your assistance, if you like.”

  In truth, Allan’s assignment was so insignificant that he felt almost ashamed. He was nothing more than an errand boy, a messenger of sorts. It was not what he had expected. It seemed almost beneath the dignity of a son of Maureen Farrell. The stories of her exploits were still fresh in the long memories of the Irish. She had made orphans of many Englishmen’s sons in her day and had rocked the corridors of Parliament at the mention of her name!

  Sheepishly Allan argued with the proprietor of the Mills Hotel over an extra weekly charge for boot cleaning and the washing of bed linen. For the princely sum of fifty shillings a week, such amenities should be provided as part of the service.

  The proprietor cocked an eye at him and mumbled something about rich Yanks wanting everything for nothing. Allan explained that this service was listed in his guidebook and that anything less would be a breach of the printed promise. And so his still-muddy boots were placed outside the door to his small corner room. Clean sheets were promised every Monday, provided the fifty shillings was paid one week in advance. One bathroom was shared by five other tenants of the boardinghouse, although Allan did have his own washbasin. Rules and regulations of the establishment were printed and posted on the door of each room. Breakfast and dinner were included in the charge. Luncheon and tea were a matter of the lodger’s choice of various plain restaurants about the neighborhood.

  Allan felt as though he had landed in high society after a lifetime of wondering where his next meal was coming from. All of this, and his only task was to meet with a couple of fellows who needed to exchange notes!

  Allan frowned, certain that this job had been manufactured just for him because he was the son of Maureen Farrell. Like an orphan’s pension, the egghead scholar-boy was being taken care of because his mother had been a great woman.

  It was a disgusting thought, one that brought a flush of shame to Allan’s cheeks. How could it be anything else?

  “I am a postman, Mother,” he mumbled as he gazed out over the foot traffic of Gower Street. “Well paid for it too. Room and board, with my boots shined each week like a gentleman.”

  He touched the scar beneath his eye, the scar he had gotten in Hell’s Kitchen as a boy. He had worn that scar like a badge of manhood, never hinting that it had been a girl who had hit him with a brick to cause that scar. Asthma had kept him small and weak as a child. Books had kept him company, filling his mind with dreams of adventure.

  So here he was, the son of Maureen Farrell—an errand boy.

  He shook his head slowly, certain of how this had all come to pass. “You wrote Uncle Colin, didn’t you, Mother?” he whispered against the glass. “Told him to look out for me?”

  It was the truth. There could be no other explanation. She was like that, Maureen was—a strong woman who got her way, even from the grave. He could almost hear the letter she must have written:

  Young Allan is going to London to study. I’ve saved a bit . . . not a well boy, even now . . . For the sake of his pride, Colin, as a favor to me . . .

  They had all commented on how much he favored her, had they not? She was small and delicate-looking herself. Ah, well, Allan thought as he scanned the room. I will do what they asked and pretend it matters to the cause all the same. He had spent his life pretending, wishing . . . remembering he was the son of Maureen.

  ***

  “I sense the imagination of the lovely Mrs. Murphy behind this request,” commented Winston Churchill. “You, Murphy, are only the messenger. Isn’t that so?’

  “Right as always, Winston. Elisa doesn’t travel far these days. As much as she enjoys coming here to Chartwell for visits, she would rather not have the baby here.”

  “I cannot understand why not,” rumbled Churchill. “Most of my brilliant ideas are hatched right here. Why not a little Murphy? In any case, tell her that I will be very pleased to speak at a rally in support of the plight of Pastors Ibsen and Niemöller and the others. Even in their imprisonment, they continue to shine as beacons of righteousness amid the Nazi dark, and we must let them—and more importantly, Herr Hitler—know that they are not forgotten. Have you selected a location?”

  “We hope that there will be an enormous turnout, so we plan to use one of the great churches. Perhaps even St. Paul’s.”

  “And the date?”

  “Elisa would like to participate in the orchestra, so she wants to allow some time after the baby’s arrival—around the end of August, say.”

  Churchill thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his dressing gown and thrust out his jaw as he nodded. “We must trust that the Nazi terror has not given birth to the child of war before then,” he said.

  ***

  These were the days of arrival and departures in Warsaw. Across the rooftops of apartments and houses, the train whistle would scream beneath the tin roof of the Umschlagplatz. Only a short time later the first groups of newcomers would straggle up Niska Street or Pokorna Street to arrive with their bundles in Muranow Square.

  Some came in search of relatives or old friends. Some came to Warsaw because they could lose themselves among the hundreds of thousands of Poland’s Jewish community. All the same, they had a different look about them than Polish Jews. Ragged bundles and cheap suitcases were carried by the lucky ones. Those less fortunate arrived wearing all their possessions. Even in the heat of summer, they bore coats slung over their shoulders or tied onto the top of a valise. The more experienced among the refugees knew that it might be hot now, but that surely a cold winter was coming for every Jew in Europe.

  Rachel was sweeping the front steps when he shrill cry of the train whistle announced that shortly new people would come to Muranow Square. Over the rooftops she could see the thick gray haze from the locomotives, as though this dark cloud had come with the wanderers, following them into Warsaw to pollute
the blue sky with gloom.

  She was watering into rhododendrons when the first family groups reached the square from different routes. Father, mother, and two little boys arrived from Niska Street. From the cut of their clothes, Rachel could tell that they were from Czechoslovakia. Only secular Jews from Prague wore caps such as the man had on his head. The woman carried a coat with a silver fox collar. They must have been wealthy before the Germans came, Rachel thought.

  An overweight man and woman and two teenaged girls limped around the corner of Porkorna Street. German. It was as plain as anything. The man was red-faced and had the look of an overworked owner of a beer cellar. The faces of his wife and daughters were flushed from exertion, their mouths twisted downward with disdain and bitterness. They gazed around the square at trams and trees and benches. Everything was quite different from Germany and so could not be quite as good. The girls watched as a black-coated Hassid walked by, twirling his earlock thoughtfully on his finger. They stared. Such sights were not common in Germany. Perhaps some grandfather has fled the tyranny of Orthodox life in Poland, bringing his family to live in civilized Germany, Rachel mused as she leaned against her broom and considered them. And now look what German civilization offers them in return! Papa says they all would eventually come back to Poland, a thousand times worse off than when they had left!

  Behind this portly German family came a tall, lean, red-headed young man, his frame tilted sideways as if the weight of his battered suitcase was going to pull him over. He wore no cap. By this, Rachel knew he was a secular Jew. Those among her people who were religious always covered their head with some sort of hat. But this drawn-looking young man had a bare head. His red hair struck up wildly as if to emphasize his rebellion in this small tradition. He wore a heavy camel-hair overcoat, which added some size to an otherwise thin frame.

  Rachel followed him with her eyes. He was the most interesting of the new refugees. He was not much older than she was, yet he was alone. No family. No companion. So youthful and yet alone. Such a visage spoke of tragedy and ill fortune.